A/N: Hey guys! It has been years, and I have decided to be honest with myself: I am not going to be able to finish this story. My interests have changed, my writing style has changed, and as much as I love the Flock, it has been long enough it wouldn't be the same to come back to it.

Thank you so much for the kind reviews you left on the last chapter. You all are the reason I'm not just completely abandoning the story altogether. Thank you for being so incredibly patient with me. I'm sorry I couldn't finish it, but because I have been on the receiving end of abandoned works, here is the next best thing:

A long paraphrase of the rest. And the tidbits of written scenes and dialogue I had to go along with it.

The paraphrase will be normal text; the scenes I had written will be italicized.

The ragtag team of Nick, James, Nathan, and Max make their way toward California. Max and Nathan want to find Nathan's sister, who is the alternate-Angel. The problem is that "They" are stationed in California. Nick and James know this because of a map they acquired, but they don't agree on what they should do with the information. Nick thinks they should run; he has the instincts of a survivor. But James doesn't agree with him, and Nick doesn't want James to tell Max what they know, because he has learned that Max is a stupid sacrificial hero who will run into the thick of danger if it means saving a few lives.

So James and Nick have this great tension where they talk about it without talking about it. James is especially angry when he realizes that Nick and Max like, like-like each other, and doesn't understand how Nick could lie to Max like that. But Nick is stubborn.

Max isn't as oblivious as they think she is, and knows that they are hiding something from her. But she has her own secrets; she feels herself steadily getting weaker and weaker. She's not really hungry anymore; she eats because she knows she has to, because it's routine, but not because she ever needs it. The cough is getting harder to hide, especially now that she's trying to hide the blood she coughs up with it. She doesn't want to worry them with her health, but she's anxious to get the California.

Because, with Nathan's help, she's figured out this must be a wish-related shenanigan. And according to Nathan, only a wish can cancel out a wish. So while they are on this "road trip," evading police and a national organization of child kidnappers, they make pit stops to try out all the basic wishing techniques.

"You're supposed to blow on it."

I feel my eyebrows drawing in. "Okay?" I blow on the flower half-heartedly. It just barely tickles the back of my throat, and that's where I want it to stay.

"No," Nathan sighs. "You have to get all of the fluffy parts off."

"I thought dandelions were supposed to tell you whether the person you like liked you back," James says from across the picnic table.

New table, new park, new state.

"No, I read this in a book. You can wish for anything," Nathan replies. Then, he purses his lips and blows until his face changes color. "Like that. Try again."

With a sideways look at Nick, who is the only one in our party who hasn't finished his McDumpster Leftovers yet, I humor Nathan. Take a deep breath and exhale. All the seeds fly off the stem and float away, carried across the packed dirt of the campground we're calling home tonight with the chill breeze.

Angel would love this.

There was a triumphant whoop from the other side of the gas station. "Found one!"

"A Little Debbie doesn't count!" whined Nathan.

I round the corner to find James gripping a cellophane-wrapped chocolate monstrosity. "Yes, it does. It has icing; it is cake."

We had scrounged up just enough money from the floor of the laundromat next door to pay for it.

[. . .]

"I didn't know people actually sang the song," I grumble. "I thought it was just in the movies."

"Seriously?" asked James. "We should sing it more to make up for all the years you missed—"

"If you value having a throat, you'll rethink that offer."

"You have to blow out the candles," Nathan said, gravely. "One breath or it doesn't come true."

I eye the four flaming twigs stuffed into the fake cupcake and adjust my angle. It isn't a real birthday cake, not for a long shot, but they had sung the song. That had to count for something, right?

I take a deep breath, and release it in one powerful gust. Each tiny flame is smothered, and James, Nick, and Nathan clap around me. "Happy birthday!"

I smile at them, but something in my heart aches. This is so different from what I had expected my next birthday to be, if I ever thought ahead enough to wonder if I would make it that long. We had our own weird traditions, and though the cheering sounds like my family, the fact that nobody has tried to set off a firework or smush the cake in my face is proof they aren't the same.

James and Nathan split the cupcake. While they argue over who gets the smoldering twigs, Nick catches my eye over the table.

"Happy birthday, Max," he says.

Some things, at least, haven't changed.

The wishes don't work.

They're finding new disguises somewhere in northern Arizona when Max hears a familiar voice. She panics, ducking behind a building and dragging the rest of the gang behind her just before two figures round the corner.

It's Nudge.

Well, not Nudge. It's her alternate-self, and the boy she's with calls her Willow.

And they're, well. . . they're on a date.

So it takes some time to get over the awkwardness of interrupting their first kiss. And then it isn't until after Max has revealed herself, Nick following behind her, that she remembers she looks like a homeless murderer on the run, and that her and Nick's pictures have been all over the news for the last several weeks.

Long story short, Willow recognizes them for all of the wrong reasons and won't listen to Max's explanations. So they have to kind of kidnap her.

But it's okay, because by this point they've made enough ruckus to catch the wrong kind of attention, and when Willow is stuck between the group with guns threatening her to come with them and the group with wings begging her to stick with them, she eventually caves and joins the group.

They hop onto a supply train headed west and hope for the best.

While they are on the train, Max continues to deteriorate. She doesn't realize she's bleeding or injured until Nathan points it out to her, and it's because, she realizes with horror, she can't feel any of it. And when they check the next morning, she hasn't healed at all.

Maybe it's because of her panic, but she starts hearing voices, too. They are whispers, and at first she thinks her not-Flock is talking to her. But then she realizes she just thinks she's hearing the Flock, in her mind. They're begging her to come back.

She promises them she will.

Max sleeps a lot on the train, which is worrisome in itself, but it gives Nick and James the time they need to think. They have the map with them still, as well as the journal full of coded information and the radio. Willow ends up being a great source for what the public knows, because she had kept up with news online before being kidnapped by you freaks. They are able to listen in on conversations when They get close enough via the radio that they nicked from the car. Together, (and Willow is a part of this now), they piece together an idea of what is up.

They call their leader "Mother," and she calls them "children," but they never hear her say anything directly over the radio. Their base is in Death Valley, aka the Middle of Nowhere, USA. They've been systematically kidnapping children via the tunnels dug under schools and hiding the evidence by setting off explosions. The kids are taken to this camp, and, according to the account of Nathan and the rumors Willow has heard, brainwashed into joining Them.

James slapped a hand down on the map. "It's a cult."

"It's a conspiracy theory," Willow argued. "Just a rumor."

"You saw them! They held you at gunpoint!"

"How do I know they weren't with you?"

"That's literally the stupidest—"

Nick held up a hand, cutting them off. Their mouths snapped shut, and three pairs of eyes searched the dark corner of the empty railcar for a stirring body.

Max was still, breathing deeply. As they watched, her shoulders tensed, and she muttered something under her breath. But just as soon as they were sure they had been caught, she relaxed again.

"That was too close," Nick whispered. "Be quiet."

Willow looked between the two of them. "You haven't told her."

Nick's mouth fell into a flat line; James looked away.

Willow crossed her arms. "Why not?"

James gestured roughly at Nick. "It wasn't my idea. Ask him."

Nick shrugged coolly. "You've met Max. She doesn't know when to stop."

The train stops in Los Angeles, and it's just the kind of city where five kids don't attract too much attention.

There's a fountain in one of the squares, and Nathan convinces Max to toss a penny inside and make a wish. Willow, by this point, knows what she's wishing for, having been filled in on the train ride, and tells them off for being stupid. The only way to reverse a wish, she says, is to recreate the same energy. It wouldn't work unless they recreate the whole environment with the same people.

Max doubles down on the search for Angel.

They sneak into a library after hours, and it turns out Willow has just as much skill with computers as her counterpart. She hacks them into the computer, and with some cajoling into the social services network. They find Angel's—Angie's address. They're lucky; it's only a few days' hike away.

They bond more as they make their way north, sticking to the mountain range to evade too much attention. Max is reminded of the E-shaped house, and it makes her more homesick, but when she looks out over the campfire and sees so many familiar faces, she starts to realize that, even though they are different from her Flock, they are her family, too. She's going to miss them, when she leaves.

She remembers what Nathan had asked her, nearly a week ago: what will happen to them, when she makes her wish? She is conflicted.

She has a panic attack and has to get away. Nick follows her into the Redwood trees, and when she has calmed her breathing he promises her he won't leave, that she's going to be okay, in the end. And he cups her face with his broad hand, and leans down, and kisses her. And the whispering in her head goes quiet, and the stars twinkle, and Max believes him.

They make it to the address. Max tells Nathan to stay behind, for now; it may have been a trap, or They could have figured out where they have been going and may be waiting for them there. So she goes alone, wandering through backyards in a sprawling suburb until she finds the mailbox with the right numbers on it.

The backyard is fenced in. An above-ground pool takes up almost half of it, covered with a tarp already to prepare for the colder weather. I pick through the dying grass and flinch when a step emits a loud squeak.

Looking down, I'm met with a chewed-to-death rubber porcupine. Lifting my foot lets out another long whine.

I freeze. It's not a very respectable death, being ratted out by an old dog toy.

But there's no motion from the house, no lights or sounds indicating anybody heard anything. So, after a tense minute, I creep forward through the yard. This time, I'm more careful about where my feet go.

It's a one-story house, which is good because I don't think I've got it in me to do any climbing tonight. It isn't hard to figure out which room is Angel's. The walls are a pastel pink, and stuffed animals litter the floor.

A bright head of curls rests on the bed.

The window is open, already.

I take another quick glance around, making sure I'm not going to be caught. No neighbors can see into the yard, and according to the light streaming through the window on the other side of the house, her parents are out of sight. Ever-so gently, I slip the window open until there's enough room for me to squeeze inside.

My feet land on warm hardwood. It doesn't make a sound as I creep across the room, toward the small body curled up under bright floral bedding.

"Angel?" I whisper.

I realize only after I've said it that a normal child would probably scream at waking up to a stranger in her room, and mentally smack myself on the forehead for the oversight.

But it's too late to turn back; the body stirs, and that tiny face rolls over to look at me. Big, blue eyes open sleepily, not a hint of fear inside.

It's really her.

"Are you an angel?" she asks.

Max plays along with Angie thinking she's an angel, for the purpose of staying stealthy and convincing her it's a dream. But she also tells her that Nathan sent her, and Angie is excited to hear it. She wants to see her brother.

Max decides that she doesn't really need to kidnap Angie. She's been adopted; she's happy; she's well cared-for here. Max just needs one or two hours, to make her wish. It would either work or it wouldn't, and if it wouldn't she would return Angie and nobody would be the wiser.

But she can't do it tonight; there are footsteps down the hall when her parents hear noises from Angie's room. Max promises her she'll come back tomorrow, and take her to see Nathan, just for a little bit. Angie happily agrees, and pretends to go back to sleep while Max slips away.

Her parents don't find anything amiss.

Max shares the plan with the rest of her group when she returns, and everything seems like it is going to go well.

But the universe has something against Max, because during their afternoon stroll through the gas station to scrounge up change for lunch, there's breaking news on the television. The local K-12 school had been attacked.

Max feels her stomach drop out as her worst fears are confirmed: Angel is among the missing students.

She's furious. She's frustrated. She's devastated. She was so close, to going home, to fixing everything.

But that quickly settles into determination. She has no choice, she has to break Angie out.

Nick tries to talk her out of it.

"You don't have to do it. Look, you have to be honest with yourself. You're not in the best shape, and there are only four of us to help you. There have to be thousands of Them now. Cut your losses, walk away from Death Valley before it eats you alive again—"

My shoulders tense. Nick trails off, realizing his mistake too late.

"Death Valley."

His expression shutters closed. He looks a lot like Fang.

"They are in Death Valley," I repeat. My voice is getting louder, but I don't bother to control it. My nails bite into my closed palms. "How long have you known?"

He remains calm, searching my face. He won't find the forgiveness he's looking for. "Since Texas."

I step back. The confession feels like a punch to the gut—worse than a punch to the gut. "You hid this from me."

Nick steps toward me. I step back again, out of his reach. "I was trying to keep you safe."

"You can't," I start. "You can't manipulate me like that. I can't believe—you lied to me." My wings flare up behind me. My instinct is to take off, to fly out of reach of the pounding in my chest. But I'm stuck here. Grounded, next to Nick.

It's never felt like being trapped before.

I steel the words behind my teeth. "Go."

James steps forward, holding up a placating hand. "Max—"

It only takes a look to cut him off. "No." I scan Nick up and down, looking for the sign I had missed, the give away that he wasn't who I thought he was. "I should never have trusted you. I should. . . I should have left you in that fire."

I regret the words the moment they leave my mouth. And at the same time I savor them.

Nick looks angry. He looks hurt. But he says nothing. He turns on his heel, picks up his bag without a word.

And then he's gone.

Max knows Death Valley like the back of her hand. She finds a building less than half a mile from where the School was supposed to be, had it existed. It doesn't look big, but she knows from experience that it's only the tip of the iceburg.

"There's more underground," I growl. "Better for the air conditioning."

She plans an attack.

The voices in her head are quiet, except for one, that rings louder than the rest. It's Nick's voice. "I'm sorry, Max. Please come back. Don't leave us."

But Max has made her decision.

Luckily, being kids means they can blend in easily. All they have to do is dispatch the guards above ground to get into the main building. It goes easily enough; nobody was really expecting to be attacked out here. They thought they had won.

Inside there's what looks like a regular office, and then an elevator disguised behind a bookshelf. James dresses in a guard's uniform and they head down.

There are dozens of levels, and Max realizes with a twist in her gut that every missing child is still here. All of Death Valley must have been scraped hollow to house all of these people.

They start their search on the lowermost floor. It's just storage and machinery. They run into a few guards and mechanics and a cook, but the four of them have already practiced the phrases they heard over the radio; they know the passwords and the lingo. They are allowed to pass, nobody suspicious.

It isn't until they make it to the third floor up that they run into the "new recruits."

It's row upon row of cages. Hundreds, lined up the width and length of a warehouse of a room. Max stumbles to a halt inside, heart beating out of her chest. It's a prison, but so much worse than that. It's a zoo. A pound.

Almost half of the cages are empty, and her skin crawls when she realizes that they were being prepared for more.

James has a keycard he lifted from the guard, and it unlocks the doors. They are caught after one child—no more than four, by the looks of it—cries. Three guards come racing down the aisle, and they barely manage to fight them off. Max knocks them out.

They collect their keycards and continue to search, herding children toward the elevator so they can get out. But they reach the last cage, and there has been no sign of her. Willow and James break off to escort the rescued children outside, both armed with guns they picked up from the guards. They are accompanied by some of the older teenagers they had released, who offer to help.

Max and Nathan follow the directions of one of the older kids to the fifth level, where the intermediate recruits are housed. The level is full of kids, all wearing matching clothing and with the same glassy look in their eyes. That's where they find Angie, but she snaps out of it when she recognizes Nathan. They have a wonderful, sweet, tearful reunion.

Then Mother shows up.

She and the rest of the organization have managed to pretty thoroughly brainwash the children, so Max, Nathan, and Angie have to flee when the entire floor comes swarming after them. When they reach the elevator, the only exit, there's not enough room; there are still kids from the third floor being evacuated. Max shoves Nathan and Angie in, anyway. James tosses her his gun just in time, and she turns and fires warning shots into the air.

But she's not willing to kill any of the kids.

The elevator doors slide shut, and she's left alone. The brainwashed children figure out she's not a threat to them, and she's restrained and taken to Mother.

Here's the thing: Max has had a suspicion. There was the rest of the Flock, in this strange place. Where was she?

So when the door opens on somebody she doesn't even recognize, she's startled into stopping.

It's Dr. Martinez. And, standing behind her, two girls: Ella, and-

"Max, dear, would you grab a seat for our guest?"

I open my mouth to let loose exactly what I think about taking an order from her, but the second girl behind Dr. Martinez moves.

I study her face, quietly shocked, as the other girl pushes her own chair in front of Dr. Martinez's desk. The other girl is younger than I am, at least it looks like it. Her hair is the same texture and color as Ella's. She moves like Dr. Martinez.

Rough hands shove me into the seat, and my hands are bound to the arms of the chair.

"Ella, why don't you and your sister check on the new recruits for me?"

Sister.

I can't even wrap my mind around the word before a new, more pressing matter takes over. The new recruits—they were going to be found out.

So Max stares down Dr. Martinez, someone she trusts intrinsically, and realizes she doesn't know what to say. She has to stall. She asks why.

Dr. Martinez is happy enough to explain, judging by her relaxed posture. She was a doctor. A scientist. She joined a research project straight out of graduate school, a firm studying trends in climate, erosion, and human population. Their research provided evidence that something catastrophic was due to happen, and soon.

"So you decided to start genetically modifying humans," I quip, letting my wings rustle behind me.

Dr. Martinez gives me a strange look. "No. Batchelder recommended it, but we could never get the funding."

The School doesn't exist. The Flock as she knows it doesn't exist. And Maximum Ride? She was a test-tube baby. She was never born.

There is only one way to prevent the end of the world, Dr. Martinez says. They have to reduce the population.

Max thinks she intends to kill all of the children she's kidnapped, and threatens her in kind. But Dr. Martinez laughs.

"No, dear. They have been chosen as the survivors."

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang is leading the last group of kids out of the lowest levels. They had found a secondary exit, a set of stairs by the trash chute, and between the stairs and the elevator they make quick work of the evacuation.

They aren't found out until Not-Max and Not-Ella show up looking for them. The sisters call the attention of more Children, and the Not-Flock is cornered in the stairway.

It is a hard battle, but neither side budges. It's Willow who figures out that the Children aren't any more willing to kill than they are. So she holds a gun to her own head and threatens them to come closer.

They don't.

They make their escape.

Above ground, there's a crowd forming. It's not just the rescued children, but authorities. They worry they've gotten themselves into deeper trouble until they see a familiar head of hair.

It's Nick.

Nathan absolutely freaks out, running to give Nick a hug. Nick is handcuffed and has an armed guard at either side of him – everyone assumes he's a serial kidnapper after all. He apologizes profusely, explaining that he was wrong, that he had made so many mistakes, that Max was—and he cuts himself off. "Where's Max?"

Max is being brainwashed.

At least, Mother is doing her best. "It's a privilege," she says, trying to lock some weird contraption over Max's head. "You should be honored to be chosen."

The contraption slides into place. "Just let go," Mother sing-songs.

But somewhere in the middle of that kerfuffle, Max starts to get even weaker. This, apparently, is not normal. Mother notices this change and checks on Max's stats (because she only wants to recruit viable candidates, obviously).

Max's heart rate is slowing down.

She's dying.

This is news to Max (but when she thinks back it makes enough sense, right?). She is not happy to receive the news that she's dying from the megalomanica alternate-universe version of her long-lost mother.

The whispers in her head get louder. And Max puts the two together – at least she's not going crazy. But she's not going out without a fight.

She finds the strength to fight back, and she beats Mother, knocking her out and dragging her body into a closet for safe keeping. She uses the intercom system to announce that there's been an earthquake and they need to evacuate immediately.

Above ground, the authorities accompanying them are surprised and amazed when hundreds of people start streaming out of the building. The police get to work arresting the adults left and collecting the kids to verify their information.

The Not-Flock scans the crowds for Max. There's no sign of her.

Nick insists on searching the bunker himself. His guards have wandered off to help with the confusion, so James picks the locks on his handcuffs and causes a distraction with Nathan so he can slip away.

He finds her in the office, slumped over the desk, unconscious and barely alive.

There's nowhere to house all of the kids while processing them and contacting their parents, so the authorities move them closer to an airport and set up a gym with cots as a temporary living space. Nick never reappeared after disappearing into the bunker, so James, Nathan, Willow, and Angie do their best to stick together among the dozens of kids at their location.

They wonder whether they've been abandoned; whether their adventure is over.

But the next night there's a tap at the window, and when James goes to investigate he finds Nick, with a limp Max slung over his back. Nick helps them sneak out.

Nick leads them to a cave in the desert that he found, where he had been staying. He had no home to go back to. Max needed a doctor but couldn't go because of her wings.

Max hasn't woken up once. Her pulse is thread, and she breathes so lightly you can't hear it.

Nick brought them there for a final goodbye.

They sit at the edge of the cave so they have an excuse not to look at each other. The night sky is clear and full of stars.

They all see the shooting star that passes by. Together, without talking about it, they wish Max could go back home.

"Max, please, come back to us."

It's the whispers again. They're louder than they've ever been. I don't feel like dealing with them.

"Wait. I think I saw. . . "

Something brushes across my face, and instinctively I flinch back from the feeling.

"Holy crap!"

"Guys!"

Something seems wrong. With a herculean effort, I manage to pry my eyes open.

I freeze.

It's Fang. And Iggy, and Nudge, and Gazzy and Angel.

She's made it home.

After realizing she doesn't remember anything, the Flock explains what happened. She hadn't been sleeping because of the nightmares, and it made her reflexes slow. When they ran into a pack of Erasers, one of them got a hit. It was a hard hit, to her head, and she had dropped.

She'd been unconscious for a week now. She was in a coma.

They had been moving from place to place, carrying her with them as they tried to figure out what to do. Doctors were too dangerous. Moving was dangerous, too, but they couldn't afford to get caught by the whitecoats.

They had thought she was coming back, a few times. Angel could sense it. They had talked to her, trying to coax her awake. But she always managed to slip away.

Fang hadn't left her side. Even last night, when it looked like she was finally going to let go. When everybody thought she was going to die.

And that's when Max remembers the feeling of Fang's hand in hers. She looks at him, and she doesn't hesitate before leaning in.

And they kiss.

A/N: I never thought I would get to the point of writing the ending of this story, paraphrase or not. (As you can see, the rest of this story would have been another 40,000+ words!) I never did figure out how to explain that the Not-Flock does exist in that alternate reality (it wasn't necessarily "just a dream") and that they stick together and are best friends for the rest of their lives. (I refuse to write a not-happy ending.)

I wouldn't doubt that there is stuff I have forgotten, or loose ends I've not wrapped up in this paraphrase. If there's anything that's bothering you, or if you have any questions, feel free to PM me or comment! If I get a lot I'll add a chapter with explanations so everyone can see.

Thank you 3