Author's Note: Thanks to KLoves2Read for doing the beta-reading work that made this chapter possible.
CHAPTER 35 – WHAT VALENCIA KNEW (REPRISE)
Max gave up two days ago. Trying to get him to talk about it. Trying to pull him out of his head.
"I just need you here," he'd told her, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, settling her against the crisp fabric of the scrubs that Val had brought for him. Max, too. She was sprawled across the crease where their hospital beds were shoved all the way together, the soft scuff of fabric mingling with her soft breathing as she shifted against his chest.
"As long as you tell me when you're ready to talk," she'd warned. She wore a gentle smile, but he could tell she hadn't quit worrying. It was written in the way her fingers drew the lazy circle across his chest again and again. In the way her eyes stayed on him a few seconds too long. In the way she tried to let him be, but ended up complaining to him again about how Val had brought her a set of powder pink scrubs to wear, and how come he got navy blue ones?
She could complain about scrubs all day long if it meant she stopped prodding Fang to talk about it. She was wearing him down and he was so close to giving in, to spewing everything that hurt. How culpable he felt. But he wasn't ready.
He just needed time to think. That was all.
The Flock had stayed for a few days, but they all had separate lives now. Iggy was itching to get home to Ella. Angel and Gazzy had their exams coming up. Nudge still had her work cut out for her at the CSM. Once it was sure that Fang's surgery was successful and that he and Max would be cleared to go home before the weekend, the rest of them made travel arrangements and cleared out.
That was when Max got restless. She took to leaving the room to bother the nurses and abuse the 24-hour cafeteria. Fang didn't blame her – between the empty room and his dull mood, it wasn't like her cabin fever was a shock. And it was nice to get a break from pretending to have it together. Not like she was oblivious to his dark mood, but still.
Val had stayed in Japan, pulling long days out in Nagasaki with the CSM crew and then staying overnight in Max and Fang's room at Fukuoka General Hospital. She'd shrugged and put her 'I'm-your-mother-and-I-know-what-I'm-talking-about face on. "It's cheaper than staying in a hotel."
Max had snorted. "Stop trying to justify this helicopter parent shtick you're on. You just can't stand to leave us alone longer than you have to."
Val shrugged again, an unashamed smile tweaking the corners of her mouth. "With the rental car, travel isn't too bad, either."
She'd also brought a computer for Fang. He'd sat up for the first time in days (only halfway, with a substantial stack of pillows), his brows drawn down with determination as his fingers flew across the keys.
He wanted it to rescue him from his thoughts, but it didn't help anything. He couldn't come up with words that felt important enough to write down. He couldn't stop thinking about the awful unfairness of death long enough to read anything worth reading. And he couldn't read anything light without wanting to hell-murder the screen over the blissful ignorance that painted social media.
OnThursday, he watched the entire first two seasons of Lost with the sound off, staring dimly as Jack fought to keep the island together and wondering, if he hadn't brought Dylan along, if he'd made him stay home, if he'd just held onto his eight-year-deep grudge and refused his company in Japan...if he'd still be dead.
Then Max would poke her head back in, goofy grin outshining her nervous eyes, and say, "I'm not done wandering yet, but do you need anything? A jello cup? Help taking a shower? I just wanted to check..." She couldn't have seen much of the hospital, because she was never gone for more than ten minutes.
He'd force a smile, shaking his head and tilting his chin up to meet her puckered lips. And then she'd flounce back out, cursing loudly when she thwacked the elbow of her hard cast against the doorframe, and Fang would be stuck fighting off wave after wave of nausea, so insanely relieved that she was alive and completely insanely miserable that it was at Dylan's expense.
More and more, he wanted words so he could try to start letting Max in. The loneliness of it crawled like ants across his chest, but his tongue stayed still.
Their last night in the hospital, Fang grappled unsuccessfully for sleep. Max snored quietly next to him, a soft, feminine snarl that hooked at the end of each breath. He fidgeted next to her for what felt like hours, trying to keep his eyes shut.
He must have dozed off because the next time he opened his eyes, Dr. Martinez was sitting in the chair next to him, face washed blue from the screen of her laptop, typing sloppily with eyes half-closed.
He must have shifted because she gave a start, clutching the laptop monitor and jerking her head towards him with panicked eyes.
"Oh!" She resettled the laptop atop her thighs and laughed nervously, bringing her voice down to a whisper. "Oh, god, Fang. You startled me."
"Sorry." He extricated his arm from beneath Max's head, carefully so she wouldn't wake, and shifted on his side to face Val. "Can't sleep."
She eyed him thoughtfully. He wondered if she could see past the way his body looked almost healed, all the way down at his heart, which wasn't.
"Wanna talk about it, mijo?"
That was all it took. The words spilled from his lips before he could catch them. "It won't stop hurting."
The admission hung stiff in the air between them, making him sweat. He wished he could gather everything up and swallow it back down. He settled for clamping his mouth shut and staring at the scuffmarks along the base of the wall. Why were the bedcovers so hot? He toed the edge of the sheets up over his ankles.
Val closed the laptop with a click and slid it onto the table, inching her chair quietly across the waxed floor until she was sitting right by him. They were quiet together for a minute, Fang still staring off into space, Val observing him thoughtfully.
"Have you talked to Max about it?"
He gave the barest shake of his head, grinding his teeth together.
"What about Iggy? You know he wants to help."
"They don't get it," Fang whispered huskily, still staring at those scuffmarks. He rubbed his toes together. "No one really gets it." They didn't feel what he felt.
Val hummed softly, her voice, gentle. "You spent more time with him than the rest of us. You got to know him in a way that the others never did. Now you're the one who gets to care."
He chanced a look up at her. Her head was leaning gently to one side, her wide brown eyes looking down on him kindly. Max's eyes, but softer around the edges. Telling him that his pain was a privilege.
He frowned deeply and looked away again. Talking with Val was bringing everything back to the surface, fresh and hot. He felt his eyes well up, and he sniffled as softly as he could so he wouldn't knock any of them down onto the pillow.
God, he did not want to cry in front of Val. Not again.
He felt her eyes on him like a hot iron. It was another minute before she spoke again.
"You know it's not your fault, right, Fang?"
He sucked in a breath through his teeth, heat growing behind his eyes. How did she get so deep like that, on the first try?
"But if I hadn't-"
"It's not," she insisted.
"But if I'd just-"
Her hand clasped his shoulder and she ducked her head to look him in the eyes. "You're not that important."
Holding her gaze was almost painful. His watery eyes darted back and forth between hers. She was looking at him seriously, softly, pinning him down with her Mother Max eyes.
His voice sounded small, like a child's. He felt small. "If I hadn't-"
"If you hadn't what, mijo?" she challenged.
He swallowed thickly and turned his face into the pilled sheets. Each breath sounded harsh against the fabric, like his lungs were trying to claw their way out, away, to a peaceful escape where no one would make him think about this.
Val's hand remained on his shoulder, her thumb gently massaging the muscle. Max found him again in her sleep and stretched out against his back, her warm breaths on the nape of his neck making his skin prickle. They sat there like that, the three of them, quiet in the dim light of the flickering fluorescent. Fang lay still at least ten minutes before he'd gathered his thoughts.
His voice was muffled in the bed sheets. "Dylan worked really hard to forget about Max. To rise above it. To be better than what Gunther-Hagen made him to be." His fist curled in the sheets and he felt his throat closing up with guilt, warping his words so he had to fight to spit them out. "But I pushed him. I dragged him out here with me to find Max. I made him Look for her. And then he died."
Val clutched his shoulder tightly. "First, that's completely loco. You did not drag him along. He chose to help you, every step of the way. Even when you weren't sure about him." She leaned against him lightly, trying to coax his face out of the mattress. "Second, you're looking at it all wrong."
Fang snorted into his pillow but peeked up at her anyway.
She lifted an eyebrow. "When he was fresh from the test tube, all he wanted was to get you gone. To do whatever he thought he had to in order to win Max's affection. He couldn't do anything else but that. But he went away. He grew up. And this time, he made the choice to fight for both of you. He chose to help a husband," she tapped his shoulder and tipped her head toward Max, "find his missing wife. Him dying was sad, awful, unjust, but it also saved you. I really don't think he did it because of the pull Max has on him. I only met him twice after he came back, but it was obvious in the way he handled it. He was helping you because it was right."
Fang gulped, eyes flitting between Val's earnest ones. He could hear the truth in what she was saying, if he just shut down his guilty spiraling. He'd seen it, played out in the way Dylan always spoke with kind, measured respect.
Even when Fang was a complete asshole.
Dylan was good all the way through. He was a better friend than Fang deserved and a better help for finding Max than Fang could have wanted. And he did it, even though Looking for Max after so many years of not Looking hurt him in ways that Fang still didn't completely understand.
Val watched him with a measured stare. She smiled softly and ruffled his hair with her fingertips. "You okay, mijo?"
Fang sighed, deep and heavy, letting his eyes fall shut again. "I'm alive."
"You are. And so is Max." He heard the low squeal of the vinyl seat and then Val was clasping his face between her hands, kissing him between his eyes. "You did good, mijo. Really. Now rest, huh?"
Fang willed himself to settle down. Max's body curved along his spine, her little snarl snore ruffling his feathers. Val's hand in his hair was soothing, drawing slow circles across his scalp and making him lengthen his neck like a cat leaning into a particularly good petting session. She was whispering to him softly. A lullaby.
"You're safe now. You're okay. You did it. Everything's going to be okay."
Everything slowed, softened, pulled apart like sun-warmed taffy, and Fang finally slipped into real sleep.
Val left to catch her flight the next morning, just a few hours before Max and Fang would be discharged. They were alone.
Fang was staring at the ceiling with the barest smile on his face, reveling in the quiet of his thoughts after his talk with Val. His hand drifting over the numb patch on his thigh and he let his eyes droop shut.
Max turned into him, scooting closer until she must have been wedged right in the crease between the beds. She pulled her knee on top of his, swirled her fingers across his chest, and looked at him across the scruffed plane of his cheek.
"You keep touching that spot," she whispered, eyes glancing down to his hand on his thigh, "but there's nothing there."
She fell silent. Waiting.
Fang turned to press his lips to her forehead, lingering for a breath. There was a soft click as he kissed her. Max's warm breath ghosted across his neck, a warm little cloud of her life trapped against his skin. He could linger there for days.
Eventually, he felt her shift, her fingers trailing across his chest to his bicep, grazing the soft spot on the inside of his elbow before catching his hand in hers. Her thumb traced his, catching on the knuckle, dragging along the bones until she was pressing, too. Into the numb.
It was weird to have someone else touch it. That is, it didn't feel at all.
She finally asked, the words drifting lazily across his clavicle, "What happened?"
A million answers flew through his mind. About ter Borcht. About fear. About Dylan. The whole story.
He took a deep breath, lungs filling until his chest pressed against her. She snuggled deeper into him. It made their hospital room feel like the safest place in the world.
And he told her.
A/N: I'm so close to the end. I thought I would be more sad about it than I am, but you guys, I have such cool story ideas planned that I'm more excited about starting new projects than I am sad about finishing this one! There's only one chapter left. No epilogue planned. The final chapter was the epilogue, until I figured out how to make it plot-relevant! That said, if there's anything you're left wondering about or want to see tied up, let me know now or forever hold your peace.
Nola96: The more I write the flock, the more I enjoy writing them. I still feel like I'm juggling when I do it, but I guess I've had enough practice now where it's not such a disaster, haha. This chapter is the last Val & Fang moment of the story, so I hope it was satisfying. They've been unexpectedly fun to write together.
DntlessAnnabeth: You're okay, no worries! You know if there's something important that you wanted to comment on, you can always go back and comment from the previous chapter. Or double up your comments in a single review. Or PM me!
KLoves2Read: Oh my gosh, dreaming about Out of Sight? That's crazy! Are you sure you want to be afflicted with my future projects? (Haha, just kidding, stay, please, I need you!)
Lustrex: Thanks for all the notes on the previous chapter. As far as the POV misstep with Val coming in the room...yeah. Yeah, I did that. It was one of those last-minute efforts to edit in something I'd forgotten, and I was doing it while tired because MRF totally screwed with my sleep all week, and then I was just too lazy to fix it. Baaah. I'll look at it when between now and Wednesday. I think I'll also try to address the way Gazzy's grown up throughout, since a lot of people are having trouble picturing him. Maybe that's not my fault so much as that it's just hard to lift him out of that eight-year-old goofball role, but I can at least try!
WithoutWings: No worries! You're always welcome to tell me what you think I can do better, and I don't mean to discourage you from that. It's just so rare that I'm confident enough in a decision that someone's called out to make a defense for it!
Guest: Happy tears, I hope. Thanks for the review!
FINAL CHAPTER ON WEDNESDAY