Epilogue

"There it is, there it is!" Nudge squealed, her face plastered against the bus window. "The White House! This is so exciting! It's so huge!" She turned to look at me, adjusting her school blazer. "Aren't you excited, Max? Don't you wish we lived in a huge mansion like that? If I was the president I would have a whole room just dedicated to my clothes and I would-"

I groaned, turning away from Nudge's everlasting monologue. Nudge didn't seem to notice – she just went on talking to her seat partner and bouncing up and down on her bus seat.

My new friend J.J. gently nudged me as the bus lurched to a stop. "Come on!" she said, grabbing her bag and heading down the bus aisle. Kids spilled out after her – I heard some teacher yelling for us to get into an orderly line, but no one was really listening. I craned my head, checking in on the rest of the flock. Angel was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, talking to another girl from her class. The Gasman stood among a group of other third graders, grinning. Fang and Iggy were making their way down the steps of another bus. Nudge was somewhere behind me, still chatting away. I tried to locate J.J., but she was lost somewhere in the crowd.

"Everyone! Please, stay together!" another teacher yelled to no avail. I rolled my eyes. Somehow, this made keeping five flock members (plus one very talkative dog, who Angel had luckily convinced to stay home, no matter how much he pleaded for us to take him to Washington DC) under control look easy.

We weren't the only school group getting a tour of the White House, apparently. It was easy to pick out all the students from the fancy schmancy school that Anne had picked out for us – the uniform blazers, slacks, and skirts gave it away – but there were plenty of other kids, strolling around, taking pictures together, and staring up at the huge building in front of us. I did a quick scan of the area, checking for Erasers or anything generally suspicious, but we seemed in the clear for now. I guess that was the good thing about being surrounded by so many people – we blended. Well, as best as mutant bird kids could blend.

"Max, come on!" I heard J.J. call. I whirled to see her gesturing towards a heavily guarded entrance, where the rest of our school group was streaming into the building. The rest of the flock was nowhere to be found, which made me a little worried, but if anything, at least the White House seemed insanely well protected. If anyone wanted to get to us, they'd have to get through security first.

"Coming," I called back, starting to make my way towards her. That was when someone slammed into me at top speed, nearly knocking me over.

"What the hell?" I yelled, shoving the person to the ground and leaping away, fists clenched, ready to fight whoever had been stupid enough to attack me.

"Max? What was that for?" The girl stared up at me, her eyes wide. I relaxed a little – she was about my age, scrawny, with dark hair. So clearly not an Eraser. Still, she was unfamiliar. That and the fact that she somehow knew my name were reasons to not lower my guard.

"How do you know who I am?" I narrowed my eyes at her as she picked herself up off the ground and dusted off her jeans.

"How do I know?" The girl crossed her arms over her chest. An expression of disbelief was on her face. "It's me, Jaz! Duh! I mean, I know it's been a few years, but I haven't changed that much!"

"Jaz?" I arched an eyebrow at her. I studied her unfamiliar face, her pout, the way she expected me to know who she was when clearly, I had never seen this girl before in my life.

"Yes, Jaz! Remember me? I thought we were best friends!" She took a step towards me and I instinctively took a step back. "Back in fifth grade? You're telling me you forgot?"

"Best friends?" I held up my hands. "I've literally never seen you before. And trust me, there's no way we went to school together. I haven't…" My voice trailed off. I was about to say that I'd never been to school before Anne had enrolled us, but that was giving this weird girl way too much information about me. "You still haven't answered my question. How do you know who I am?"

"I can't believe you guys are here!" she exclaimed, completely ignoring my question again. "Are you on a field trip too? My eighth-grade class is visiting DC! Hey, is Fnick here?" Jaz asked, peering around. "What about the rest of the flock? Iggy? Nudge? Oh my gosh, is Nudge here? I missed her so much! How did you guys get here? Did you fly? Did you-"

I grabbed the front of her shirt, yanking her in close. "How do you know so much about us?" I growled. My eyes darted back and forth. "Are you a spy for the School? Are you one of them?"

Jaz's face grew pale. "I… I…" she trailed off, looking small. "I would never work for the School! Those guys tried to hurt you! And Daisy! And me! I would never help them!"

I narrowed my eyes. "Why do you know so much?" And why did those names sound so familiar?

Jaz fumbled for my hands, still clasped onto the front of her shirt. "Can you please let me go? You're acting really weird, Max. It's like they wiped your memory or something."

"You've got to be kidding me." I rolled my eyes.

"No, no!" Jaz's eyes widened. "Maybe they really did wipe your memory!" She bit her lip, staring down at her feet. "That's why I'm the only one from school who remembered you and the rest of the flock. After you guys escaped that day, after me and Daisy got away, they wiped everyone's memory so that they wouldn't know what happened and-"

"Wait. Wait. Hold on." I released her and she stumbled backwards. I thought back to those years after we had escaped from the School – how the entire first year was spotty and blurry in my mind. How I remembered barely anything for a whole year after Jeb had rescued us from the School. He'd told me that it was because of the trauma we'd gone through, but now, knowing how Jeb had betrayed us, I wasn't sure I could trust anything that Jeb said anymore.

I blinked, looking at the unfamiliar girl standing in front of me. "Jaz?" I asked.

"Yes?" Her eyes lit up, but I shook my head.

"I don't get it. We went to school together?"

Jaz nodded vigorously. "For almost a whole school year! Except you guys had to leave right before the end of the school year because the Erasers attacked our school and I thought I'd never see you guys again, and Daisy had to move across the country because her aunt was moving and I haven't seen her in so long either and-" She kept talking, but I barely heard it.

"A whole school year…" I muttered, staring down at my feet. If what Jaz said about the memory wipe was right, then that accounted for almost the whole year that was missing from my memories. I looked back up at her. She was peering at me, her brown eyes big and concerned.

"You okay, Max?"

"Jaz?" I whispered. Suddenly, memories came flooding back - Jaz, throwing herself at Fang every chance she got and how crazy it drove me; our fifth-grade teacher and how pretty much everything I did got on her nerves; taking the bus to school with the rest of the flock every morning; Jaz standing up for us against the Erasers, even though she was powerless against them. Jaz crying on the day the Erasers attacked our school, promising that she'd never ever forget us.

"You… never did forget, huh?" I said slowly.

"Max?" Jaz's eyes widened. She launched herself at me, wrapping me in a hug. "I knew you'd remember! I knew you would!"

"Get off me!" I protested, shoving her away instinctively. She pouted up at me, and I sighed. "Okay, fine." Jaz squealed and hugged me again. It took everything in me to not push her away this time, but I couldn't help but smile just a little bit at the familiarity of it again. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten. No – I couldn't believe our memories had been wiped. It was just one more reason to hate Jeb, one more reason we could never ever trust him again.

"I really missed you so much," Jaz cried again, before I couldn't take it anymore and wriggled out of her grasp.

"Okay, okay. Enough with the hugging." I held my hands up defensively in case she tried it again.

"Where have you guys been?" Jaz tugged at my sleeve, looking up at me with an anxious expression. "What about the Erasers? Are they still trying to hunt you down?"

Erasers. In the time that I'd been talking with Jaz, I'd let my guard down. Instinctively, I did a quick scan of the area around us, but nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. For now, at least.

"Yeah," I murmured, taking a step back from her. "But hey. Listen. We probably shouldn't talk for too long. If anyone sees you talking to me, you'll probably become a target too."

Jaz glanced down at the ground. "Yeah," she whispered back, frowning. "I guess… this is goodbye?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Max!" Jaz wailed, throwing herself at me and hugging me tight one more time. For once, I didn't protest. When she pulled back, tears were running down her cheeks.

"Jeez, Jaz." I rolled my eyes at her. "Stop it with the crying. Are you an eighth grader or a kindergartner?"

She managed a smile through her tears. "There's the Max I know."

"Jaz!" someone called. I glanced up to see a group of girls about our age, staring at us curiously. "Come on! Our bus is leaving!"

"Who's that girl?" another one of her friends shouted.

"I gotta go." Jaz wiped her face with her sleeve. "But promise you won't forget me this time, okay? Really really promise?"

"I can't make any promises," I told her. She blinked up at me and sniffled. "But uh… I'll try my best," I added awkwardly.

"And I'll never ever forget you!" she insisted.

"Yeah, I know. I seem to remember you saying that, weirdly enough." I rolled my eyes at her again.

"Jaz! Let's go!" one of the girls beckoned again.

"Take care of yourself, Max." Jaz managed a smile, tucking her hair behind her ears. "And tell the flock I said hi, okay? And tell them I really really miss them, and that I'll never forget them either, or that-"

She was interrupted by the sound of a horn honking. Jaz spun to see her bus driver waving at her, yelling at they were going to be late to their next stop on their tour.

"You really need to go," I told her, smirking.

Jaz ran down the steps to the bus, her dark hair flying out behind her. At the last second, she spun and yelled, "Bye Max!"

I laughed, waving back. And then she climbed up onto the bus, the door closed behind her, and she was gone. I watched the bus lurch away from the curb, wondering if I'd ever see her again. The odds of that seemed extremely unlikely, but then again, so were the odds of us meeting here today.

I heard someone calling my name – I turned around to find Angel, waving at me. "Max!" she yelled. "Come on." Angel ran over, taking my hand. "The tour is about to start. I came to find you." She smiled up at me sweetly, her blond curls framing her angelic face.

I glanced over my shoulder again for Jaz's bus, but it was already gone.

"Angel," I whispered. "This is crazy. You'll never guess who I just saw."

"Oh yeah?" Angel smiled up at me. From the way her eyes sparkled, I could tell she already knew exactly what I was about to say. "Wanna bet?"

THE END

Somehow, after all of these years, I've reached the end.

When I started writing this story, it was 2012, I was in high school, and I was posting frequent updates on Max-Dan-Wiz (man, what a throwback.) After that site shut down, I started uploading the chapters I'd already written to Fanfiction. As I got busier, it became harder and harder to find the time to write, but I never gave up on wanting to complete this fanfic someday. I really enjoyed writing it and it's always had a special place in my heart, so I swore to finish it someday, no matter how long it took! And now I'm at the end. Many things have changed since I was 16 and I started writing this fanfic, but whether you read it nearly 10 years ago (wow) or just started reading recently, I want to thank you for your support. To anyone who left me a review, even after a long time without any updates, thank you for encouraging me to keep going. And I'm so grateful to everyone who just clicked on this story in the first place, whether you read one chapter or read them all! Thank you so much! :)

(Also, believe it or not, this isn't even the last Maximum Ride fanfic I'm writing. I have a new one I started during Nanowrimo, and I'm excited to start posting chapters next month! It's an AU and my first time writing one, and I hope you'll consider checking it out.)

With that being said – thank you once again for reading, from the bottom of my heart! And now, it really is the end :')