A.N: Thank you MandiiDD and InvaderVyn for actually reading this.

MandiiDD: thank you so much and I will:).

InvaderVyn: thank you for the constructive criticism I actually do appreciate that you took time to do it, I don't think I'll get a beta though (I don't know who to get) and you should tell me what grammar mistakes because if it's the "gonna" and stuff like that; well then that's kind of how they talk. Oh and I don't want to spoil anything but there IS a reason why Max is being like that. Part of it is because she annoys me sometimes and I want to change her characters a little and then the other part is… well you'll find out. I'll try to live up to that potential:)

Getting there

I wake up to the sun being a bitch and deciding I should wake up two hours before my alarm went off. Ugh… Well I might as well get up now since I'm already awake.

I walk into our little kitchen and open the fridge. It's already stocked well so we'll have enough food for the short time we spend here. I don't want to wake the others yet since it's still pretty early so I take the milk out, and make cereal just for myself. Not like they'd even want to eat something I made (even cereal). Oh, what would we do without Iggy…

After I make my cereal I go in the living room and plop myself down on the couch. I turn on the TV and turn the volume as low as it can go, so I could still hear but the others wouldn't be disturbed. Pretty soon I was done with the cereal and just watched the news.

Then I sprinted to the bathroom, and puked my guts out. Well there goes my breakfast. No wonder why the others never want to eat anything I make. *Sigh…

I go to the kitchen and look at the milk. The expiration date says it expires today. I probably should have checked that. So I throw it out and look for some other little thing to eat.

About two hours later I decide it's time to wake the others so I go to Dylan's room. Knocking on the door I scream "GET UP!"

I hear an "ugh!" from his room and him flipping over, so I feel accomplished and go upstairs to get the others up.

Once everyone's up and crowded around the TV while Iggy makes breakfast I tell them all again what we'll be doing today (I know Iggy can hear from the kitchen so I won't have to repeat it again).

"Who threw away the milk?" Iggy asks confused from the kitchen.

I go to the kitchen and say "I did, it says it expires today".

"Max, milk is good for a while after it says it expires" he says matter-of-factly and making me feel stupid.

While he got the milk out the trash and uncapped it I say "well I had some earlier and it made me sick" trying to defend my actions. So then he sniffs the liquid in question.

"I think it's fine, maybe it was something else you had that made you sick. Oh and Max when they throw milk away, people usually dump it down the sink."

"No, it was the milk Iggy. It was the only thing I had; and I knew that!" I say a little aggressively.

"Ok chill Max. We still need some milk for the pancakes though" I give him a dirty look. "But I guess I can improvise…" he says surrendering the subject. That's what I thought.

"And pick that up" I say pointing to the pancake box he dropped on the floor.

"Max, you dropped that" he said getting annoyed.

"No I didn't. Just pick it up" I say turning to leave for the living room.

As I walk out of the kitchen I hear him mumble "god, next thing you know she'll be shaving one of my eyebrows in my sleep if Gazzy leaves the toilet seat up…" I decided to ignore it this time thinking of how stupid he just sounded.

A while later, breakfast was ready and we all dug in. Everyone was done after about five of Iggy's giant pancakes but I ate two more. "Hey Max?" Gazzy said sweetly.

"Yea?" I asked cautiously while chewing the last of my pancake. Nudge made an 'ew' expression when I accidently spit some of it out while talking.

"Can we have our bomb back?" I should have guessed…

"I'll give it to you before we leave Gazzy, is that ok?"

"Yea, ok" he says disappointed.

"Ok guys, everyone start getting ready. We're leaving in about half an hour people!" I said as we all took the plates and things to the kitchen.

About fifteen minutes later I was I my room getting dressed for this mission when there was a knock on my door.

"Come in" I say pulling my shirt down.

Dylan comes in (shocker) and just sits down on my bed.

I turn to him expectantly "can I help you with something?"

He slowly looks up at me and looks in my eyes for a minute. I guess he didn't find whatever he was looking for because after a while he just looked back down at the carpet and shook his head.

"Well ok?" I say confused "Are you ready?"

"Yea. I think all the others are too… Except for Nudge" He still didn't look up, he just talked to the carpet.

I go stand by my bed for a moment then sit next to him. "Dylan are you ok, is something wrong?" I ask a little worried. He's usually happy and outgoing; right now he's… not himself.

Now he looks at me a little angry "No Max, a better question is are you ok?" I look at him shocked "Don't you trust me?" Now I'm really confused. "I could help you Max" then he whispers "Why him? Why not me?"

I still had no idea what he was talking about so I just tried to end the subject "Um, I'm going to go… help Nudge" I say getting up and leaving the room.

I go up the stairs and pass Iggy and Gazzy talking in the hallway. They stop when the see me, and Iggy asks "can we have it now?"

"Yea, fine. Go get it, it's on my nightstand." Then I look at Gazzy "Gazzy knows where" I say, and then walk past them to Nudge's room.

"Hey Max! Ok I'm almost ready I just need a hair-"she said looking around her floor. "Found it!" she exclaimed while bending down to get a pony tail holder from under her bed. She got back up smiling and asked "so is everyone ready?" while putting her hair up.

(SECRET BRANCH OF ITEX)

"Are you sure he knows?" the director- Silvia- asked referring back to experiment AH-G2-3.

"We can't be one hundred percent positive since we don't have contact with his thoughts like we do experiment AH-G1-1. But referring back his earlier actions and his programing mam… well he should have been able to sense it" The man in charge of surveillance and information gathering- Jake- says while typing some commands into a high tech computer. Then he turned back to the director, more seriously "our only concern now mam, is that AH-G1-1 doesn't know herself… Which could be potentially harmful for-"

Silvia cut him off before he could finish and says "that's fine for right now, she should soon though. If she doesn't by our next meeting, we might have to communicate with her."

(MAX)

We just landed in the woodsy area around the Denver DG headquarters and now Dylan was making sure that the coast was clear for us to go. Iggy and Gazzy were going to separate from Dylan, Nudge and I so they could set their bombs.

"All clear guys" Dylan whispers turning back to us. "There are three guards over on the east entrance but that should be fine right?"

"Yea" I whisper back "We're going in through a vent by the west entrance, so we should be fine." I made sure everyone was ready and then gave them the signal to follow me... and then it happened again.

After I was done puking behind some poor bush I looked back at my flock. Nudge was the first to speak, like usual "Max, are you ok? That's the second time today. I think you're sick, are you sure you want to go through with the mission right now. I mean if you're not feeling well we can just do this some other time" she said with concern obvious on her face.

"No, I'm fine it's probably just that stupid milk from this morning. Apparently I didn't get it all out of me earlier" I say aggravated.

Iggy then clears his throat and we all look at him "Um, I know you'll probably hate me for this but I kinda added the milk to the pancakes" I started to get mad but the he said "but before you kill me or whatever, think about it. We ALL had those pancakes, but you're the only one that got sick. So I don't think it was the milk."

He had a point, but I was still mad he disobeyed me. I opened my mouth in preparation to discipline Iggy but Nudge cut me off "Max we never get sick! What if this is really serious, what would happen if-" I put my hand over her mouth because she had gotten loud and the guards might hear us.

I look to were the guards were and they're not there anymore. "Guys. We're out of here. Now" I say sternly and get my wings out right as the bullets start flying. One hits my right wing and goes right through with some of my feathers. That got me mad so I say "never mind, guys we're staying and fighting!"

'Ma-ak-s-' I heard in the back of my head, it sounded like a static walkie talkie 'Voice is that you?' I asked quickly but got no reply.

At first it doesn't hurt and as everyone started to fly in the trees, I try to do the same but right as I'm about to go behind them the pain registers and it didn't really feel too nice. I wince but keep going. I was about to reach them when I got shot again, this time on my leg. That one actually hurt a lot and now I had pretty much lost the flock, except for Dylan.

He stayed back on the ground and was running to me, but then he got shot in the arm. The bullet didn't go in his arm, but it scraped its way by. Dylan didn't even wince he just licked his hand and put it to his upper arm, where the bullet had hit. When he took his hand away I could see the wound was almost healed. This all happened in a few seconds and he was still coming to me. Then a huge guard came out of nowhere and started hand-to-hand combat with Dylan. I'm pretty sure it was part of yet another M-Geek batch. I saw them both fight -pretty evenly matched- further in the woods and out of my sight.

"Dylan!" I cried out. I was limping now and as a last ditch effort I tried flying again. The guards were getting closer now but I had the woods to my favor, they gave me a little longer before the guards would be able to actually aim right at me. I felt a warm liquid falling from my wing and then noticed the blood. I thought I'd still be able to fly so I tried anyway.

The guards were in sight now and the rest of the flock dive bombed at them from the trees they were hiding in and tried taking all of their guns but missed one.

I got maybe fifteen feet in the air until I was shot at again this time in the torso. I grabbed my side and started to fall.

"Max!" Nudge cried. She was fighting one of the M-Geeks, hitting all the weak spots we knew of, but apparently all those had been fixed. Nudge however, being smart as she is, hit some other spot at the back of its neck and the thing just crumbled down.

At the last second I made my wings go out, to slow the last few seconds of my fall. It still hurt a lot though. God why did this happen! This never happens to us, and this time we had this planned out so well too! I can't believe this! It can't end like this, I can't die like waterfowl! And I sure as hell can't let them get my flock!

That's when Dylan flew in again, this time with Iggy and dropped down some bombs by the guards/ M-Geeks, or whatever they are. Dylan flew towards me and without landing- just running a foot or two- grabbed me and flew back up, out where he'd come from with Iggy.

"Nudge! Gazzy! Let's go!" Iggy yelled back. They finishing the last M-Geek together and then flew to us.

When we got some distance from there we landed and Dylan sat me down on the grass and I noticed that his arms were full of blood- my blood. "S-sorry Dylan" I say feeling a little faint.

"Shh Max, it doesn't matter. Iggy we need help right? You can't fix it?" Dylan said quickly.

Iggy was a little speechless, finally seeing my injuries, but he snapped out of it quick "no we have to go to a hospital now, she's already lost a lot of blood. Hurry!"

We still didn't really want to be found or have to ask anyone for help especially when it involves hospitals and doctors. But apparently my injuries were bad enough to risk the flock getting found out. So we get to the hospital and Dylan barges right in by almost breaking the door down in the process, and rushes straight to the front desk ladies. He bumped into a few people who had been in line but once they saw me they made way for us looking scared. After that all I remember is Dylan yelling something at the front desk ladies. My stomach started hurting really really bad and then everything went dark.

…

I woke up sometime the next morning, I think. Soft light was coming in from the semi-opened window to the right of my bed in this white room I was apparently in. I noticed some faint pain in my side and remembered everything from the day before; Getting found and shot, then passing out in the hospital. I tried sitting up and to clutch my side but when I moved my leg started to hurt too. So I just gave up and lay back down while wincing. Then I noticed an IV on my wrist, and a few other things I didn't know on me as well.

"The nurse said not to move too much" I heard someone say from my left. I turned my head on the pillow to see Dylan looking at me. His eyes had slight bags under them and he looked and sounded extremely tired.

I looked at him for a moment the asked "what happened?"

"Well you lost a lot of blood from the three shots you got. The whole flock gave you some of their blood, the doctors know about us now but I called Jeb and he took care of it" I made a face at Jeb's name but didn't interrupt. "This room wasn't really big enough and they said no one should even be in here until you were more stable, so they gave us another room to sleep in. You became stable at around two or three so I came in then" he summarized.

"What time is it now?" I asked glancing at the window again.

"Um" he takes out his cell phone to check the time "its nine twenty three" he says sliding the phone back in his jean pocket to look at me again. "Well before the doctor comes I should tell you he said he wanted to wait to tell us something for when you woke up" as he said that an expression crossed his face that I couldn't quite place.

Then a nurse walks in "oh I didn't think you would be awake yet sweetie" she exclaimed looking at me then looking down at the clipboard she was holding "ok, well I'm just going to be checking on some things right now, and I bet you're starving right now huh? I can send someone in here after me to get you both something to eat if you'd like" she said as she walked around my bed and looked at some machines hooked to me.

"That would be very nice of you" Dylan says while she was scribbling something on her clipboard. She looked up and smiled, nodded once and after a few more scribbles made her way to the door. She stopped and looked at her clipboard one more time then back at me "the doctor should be here soon to talk to you" she said a little more impassive than when she'd talked to us before. Then she left.

After we ate a doctor who couldn't be more than thirty came in "Ms. Ride I didn't expect you to already be awake, are you comfortable?" He asked nicely.

"Yea, I'm good" I say hesitantly.

"Good, good. No stomach pain?" I shook my head and he went on "Ms. Ride, I'm really sorry. We really did everything we could, but the wound was too close and you had lost so much blood… your lucky to be alive."

He paused and I looked at him confused and suddenly felt fear race through me. Had I somehow lost my wing or something?

Then he shocked me by saying with a very apologetic face: "I'm so sorry mam, but we lost the baby."

Whaaaa? "th-the what?" I asked dumbfounded.

A.N: Sorry this took so long to post but I have school and I was busy so yea… But if anyone is willing to help me, private message me. I want to have someone I can email who can help me and just check over my work, since sometimes what I write sounds good in my head but awkward in my writing. Also sorry for the cliff hanger but I couldn't help myself so please comment so I know you're still interested and I'll write more.

Thank you! LOVE YOU ALL:)

-L