Sorry it's been a while, but here's the next chapter!
Max
Now it was just Fang and me standing there in the forest. As the seconds ticked by, my euphoria of seeing him again was beginning to slip away as anxiety crept up. I became self-conscious and suddenly wished everyone was back here to distract from the silence of the woods. I could feel it like an eye of a hurricane. One battle had just ended, but I knew another was about to start and this calm wouldn't last long. I debated the best time to tell him my news, but I knew there was no best time. I hadn't seen this boy in four months and a lot had changed since then. I looked at him and knew he was observing me too. Right now, he kind of looked like a mess, but I'm sure I did too. He had one arm hanging awkwardly by his side that I assumed had been injured in the fight. He also had blood and dirt splattered on his clothing and hair. His outfit consisted of a t-shirt and jeans and was torn from the fight, but he looked like he had been lacking in the hygiene department lately. I mean, I guess I shouldn't judge seeing as that's how I appear about 90% of the time. I was secretly grateful to have been reunited with him now that I was looking somewhat clean. I had at least showered this morning.
His hair was long and scruffy and he had a layer of grime covering his skin. I wondered what he and his gang had been up to. Where were the girls of his gang anyway? Where was his precious Maya? That thought sent a burning through me. What had he done with Maya? I shuddered at the thought of them together. She was me after all. Maybe she had a different personality and changed her hair, but she was still living in my body. In Paris, he was always with her and constantly stuck up for her whenever I plainly pointed out that she was my clone. And I was the one pregnant with his child. So while I was suffering over here, he was probably out frolicking around with her without a care in the world. And that angered me. But then I thought about what Ari had said before I slipped into unconsciousness. "One Max down, one to go." Was she dead? Is that why she wasn't there? My head was whirling with thoughts that were being tossed around all at once.
I wondered how he felt right now, not knowing what was going on. Not understanding the dramatic change that had happened since I'd seen him. There was no way he could have known. Except for the fact that I was visibly larger and that there was no way any of us could gain weight even if we tried because of our amazingly fast metabolisms. Behind his cool exterior, though, I could sense him searching for an answer.
Finally, I said something. "Hey." I mentally kicked myself for blurting out something so dumb.
"Max." He breathed, coming back over to embrace one again. I returned the hug, thinking that I could have stood like this forever. Just me and Fang. But it wasn't just us. Our unborn child was there with us and from now on, it would no longer simply be just Max and Fang.
As we let go, he smirked, "You look different Max. You really do. I can't put my finger on it, though. It's like you have this glow. You look…good" He mused.
My blood froze, but I refused to let my emotions get the best of me. I knew the longer I drew this out the harder it would be, though. I needed to just get it out. Like ripping off a bandage. "Well, you look different yourself. I mean look at this shaggy hair." I reached out and playfully ruffled it. God he had grown so much older since I'd last seen him. This was not the silent, dark haired boy I used to know. He was now a man, a leader, a lover, a father.
He rolled his eyes, "Well I have to say, you actually look cleaner than I'm used to. Where have you been staying? A real house?"
"No, we've been in a motel for about a week or so now. We-we rescued Angel from the, um, School. And we've been staying here to give her time to recover." I managed to get out and I saw his eyes flash as I mentioned Angel and the School.
"You mean she was alive and the School had captured her? I didn't even know the School existed anymore!" He said, trying to comprehend it. I gave him a brief synopsis of what went down at the school, but I did leave out some important parts, such as my discovery and the part about his DNA. I hated lying to him, but I would have to tell him later.
"So do you think the School has anything to do with this end of the world stuff?" He asked when I was done.
I sighed, "I have no idea. We need more time to sort through all this. My mind's been pretty distracted lately." I absentmindedly put a hand to my forehead and rubbed my temple and began to pace.
He noticed my nervous behavior. "Max? Is everything alright?" He asked seriously.
I stopped and whirled to face him, putting my hands on my hips. His eyes narrowed and followed them to where they settled on each side of my little bump. "No everything is not alright!" I snapped, "And I'm sick and tired of pretending and lying to everyone. Fang, I have to tell you something." My heart caught in my throat as tears welled up and I thought I was going to throw up. He looked at me attentively. "Fang I'm pregnant."
He took a step back from me, "Oh my God." He said in complete and utter shock, for some reason I detected a bit of a hurt undertone. "Wow, Max. Just, wow. I didn't think you had it in you."
Now it was my turn to be shocked and hurt, "Well, I would have told you if you hadn't run off with your gang and Maya after the explosion in Paris!" I was getting defensive now. He acted like this was my fault.
"Oh I wouldn't be talking about Maya if I were you. Getting all serious with Dylan." He said his name as if it was a disease. "I can't do this, really. You two have fun together with your little family." He snarled as he turned around and stalked off, leaving me shocked. I had no idea what he was talking about and I had expected him to be shocked, but not this angry. Full of hurt, I picked up a pebble next to me and chucked it at the back of his head, hitting him with perfect aim. "Ow" he seethed, "What the f-"
"What the Hell is your problem?" I demanded, marching up to him.
"What is my problem?! How did you think I was going to react? Do you want me to knit it a sweater saying 'Max and Dylan are the best Mommy and Daddy ever'? Honestly Max, how could you do this to me?" He turned around again and continued walking.
I was left standing there mulling over what he just said. "Do this to-? Max and who?" Oh. My. God. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. He thought I had sex with Dylan. How could he be so pigheaded? "FANG YOU ARE SUCH AN IDIOT!" I practically screeched so loud I bet the rest of my flock could have heard me back at the motel. I stormed up to him and planted myself in front of him, cutting him off. I then poked him in the shoulder hard with each word, "Holy. Shit. You are the biggest dumbass I've ever met." Now I punched him in the arm, "Did you really think I would do that with Dylan?" This was not the way I wanted this to go, but he brought it here. He just rolled his eyes. And tried to brush past me, not listening to anything I was saying. I yanked his arm back though, took a deep breath, and looked him in the eye. "Fang, I'm pregnant with your child."
He froze in place and his eyes practically bulged out of his head. I've never seen anyone, never mind Fang, look so shocked about something in my life. I let go of his arm, wondering if he was going to explode. I think he took the news that I was having Dylan's child better. "What?" He whispered.
"You heard me. You're the father of my child. Not Dylan, not anyone else. You." And slowly, very slowly, he started to soften up.
"Jesus, Max." He ran a hand through his hair as I let him process it. He was acting like the child here, reminding me of how awful of a situation this was. We were only teenagers. It was weird to think of us that way, but it was true. Sure, genetically enhanced teenagers that were supposed to save the world, but teenagers all the same. We didn't know squat about having a baby. I mean, being parents is one thing we know how to do because we've been taking care of the flock for so long. But we were having a baby together. And that was totally different.
His dark eyes poured into mine as we stood there, unsure what to do next. Now that I had just dropped this bombshell, we weren't exactly in the partying mood. I forced a smile on my face, hoping he would return it. "Fang," I chuckled, "we really screwed up. No pun intended."
He returned the short laugh, "Yeah. We did."
When we got back to the motel, the others had loads of food ready and I was completely starved. Between saving Fang's butt and arguing with him, I was done by the time we got back. I noticed that Holden and Ratchet had joined us and now that Fang and I were no longer arguing (for now), the flock was accepting them. There was still no sign of Dylan, but I figured I'd let him be. If he thought our reunion was bad, I was in absolutely no rush to tell him about the baby.
I washed up Fang's wounds and wrapped up the gashes on his shoulder. None of his injuries were too bad, thankfully. I've seen him almost die from injuries way too many times. We had decided to wait to tell the flock the news, but didn't exactly specify the date. If it were up to me, I'd wait until I was going into labor, but I'm sure they'd guess before then. I shuddered at the thought of going through that mess. I still had a few months until I got there, though. We caught each other up on everything, laughed, made messes, blew things up, and stuffed our faces. As the festivities came to a close, most of the food was gone and we all piled into one of the beds in the girls' room.
Fang knows. I heard Angel, who was lying on top of Fang's stomach, in my head. Normally, she liked to curl up on top of me, but she told me she'd have to settle for Fang because she said she was afraid of crushing the baby.
Yeah, I had to tell him. I'm sure you saw the whole conversation in his mind you little eavesdropper. I'm not sure if I want you hanging out in our heads anymore.
Agreed. I wish I could control it. Ugh, I've had to watch you guys do it twice now. Once from your mind, once from his. Ew.
Ew indeed. You're seven. Now stop watching porn from inside our heads its weird.
Well stop thinking dirty thoughts about each other. I've seen it all, Max.
I nearly laughed out loud now. She was such a disturbed child.
Yeah, thanks to you. She responded. And then, she closed her eyes and curled up into a little ball on top of Fang. I watched her sleep peacefully. I felt a little embarrassed about the things she'd seen in my and Fang's heads. It was never this much of a problem until, well, we started to get older. She was still only seven, though and that was much too young to be experiencing that stuff. Heck, I was too young for this stuff. We were just out of practice of hiding things from her. He looked down at her too and reached over, taking my hand in his. "Pshh. Kids." I rolled my eyes.
"Kids." He snorted. And speaking of kids, I looked around to see that every one of the flock, Holden and Ratchet included, was passed out on the bed. And Dylan still hadn't returned. "Hey," he whispered softly in my ear, "You wanna get out of here?"
I smiled back, "sure." I lifted Angel off Fang and placed her in the spot I was, next to Nudge. I felt a rush of excitement as he took my hand and led me out the door. We opened our wings and went for a nice long fly together. We didn't need to speak, we just needed to fly. His dark black ones touched the tips of my brown and white ones as we flew in the same rhythm. We flew until we reached a beach and decided to land. It was the middle of the night so nobody was there and we could be alone. Fang sat down and I crawled into his lap. I rested my head on his shoulder as we watched the ocean waves splash gently on the sand in the moonlight.
"Hmm." He said.
"Hm?" I replied.
"You're heavier than I remember." He said, turning his head to look at me and giving me a lopsided smile.
I rolled my eyes playfully, "Well it's your fault that I've gained all this weight."
He chuckled, "It takes two to tango, baby. And you're not even heavy, relax. I was joking. You've gained like, two pounds. No big deal it comes with the territory I believe."
"Huh. You think?" I said sarcastically. Not that I was vain or anything, but I've never even thought about my weight in my life and now suddenly I was gaining it for no apparent reason and also having this bulging stomach was kind of going to make it hard to fight off Erasers or whatever else they throw at us.
He slipped his fingers under my shirt and rested them on the little bump. I shifted at first at his touch but then relaxed as he gently rubbed it with his thumbs.
"So, have you thought of any names?" He asked. I had to laugh, unsure of whether he was serious or not. With the way life was going, something as minute as a name just hadn't seemed to pop up yet.
"Well, I'm just sticking with Fang Jr. for now. It's weird. I don't even know if it's a girl or a boy so how can I think of a name?" I replied.
He shrugged, "just pick a boy name you like and a girl name you like then whichever gender it is, you'll have a name ready."
"Well, clearly we pick the best names. I mean like, Fang and Maximum Ride are really great."
"Well, in our defense, we named ourselves when we were about five. So I'm thinking Fang Jr. for a boy and Max Jr. for a girl. What do you think?" He asked.
"Perfect." I responded, "There we go, that was easy."
He laughed at me with a good old Fang laugh that I loved. I turned around to face him and kissed him, engulfing his laugh. He kissed me back and we stayed there, just like that for a long time. It was a perfect moment; one that I wish could have lasted forever.
The next morning, I woke up to Angel huddled against my chest, breathing softly in sleep. My morning sickness was getting better and on this morning, I didn't have to go running towards the bathroom to throw everything up. Instead, I could lie in bed and snuggle with Angel. I turned over to see Nudge, all 5'6 of her, sprawled out on the bed and smiled at how simple and perfect life was. I heard a faint knock at the door and figured it was one of the boys so I went over and opened it. In the doorway stood tall, dark, and mysterious himself. "Hey." He said.
"Hi." I yawned, "What's up?" He and the other two boys had gotten their own room down the corridor last night.
"We need to talk." He said, "But I've brought donuts as a peace offering." He waved a paper bag in front of me as I practically drooled of excitement.
"Alright, what do we need to talk about?" I asked.
"The end of the world." He replied with a completely serious face and I knew he wasn't kidding. Just great.
"Fine," I growled, throwing a sweatshirt on over my shirt and leggings and slipping my worn out sneakers on. "Let's talk. But it's too early for this." I grabbed the donut bag out of his hand as I walked out past him.
We ended up sitting on the roof of the motel as we ate. "So," I began, "how about those 99%ers? Real buzz kills, huh?"
He turned to look at me, "What do you know about the 99% plan?" He asked.
I shrugged, "Not much, just that they are completely insane and want you dead."
"They want me dead?" He asked.
"Yeah, it's something about your blood. Angel said it was your DNA that was dangerous and it holds the key to immortality. And I guess Jeb wants you dead because of it. He wants it destroyed. But don't worry, I'm not letting them go anywhere near you. They've got to get through the rest of us before they can get to you…" My voice trailed off as I noticed Fang was no longer paying attention. He just stared at me. "What?"
"Max you're in danger, too." He said his eyes moving down to my stomach.
I understood what he was getting at and Jeb's voice rang in my head. You have two options. If the child was Fang's they were going to kill it, no questions asked. Half of its DNA was Fang's.
"Oh." I said out loud. There really wasn't much else to say.
He put his face in his hands. "What are we going to do?" He mumbled, frustrated. I searched for an answer inside my head, but came up with none. They were hunting Fang and me down. Knowing him, he would want to get away and leave to keep everyone safe, but I just couldn't bear to see my family split up again now that we were finally all together.
"Well," I began, "first I think we should get out of here. We need to get away and move onto someplace more hidden where they couldn't find us. Maybe head east?" I looked over at him and he nodded.
"It's a good start. At least we'll be away from those crazies." He agreed, "But I can't drag Holden and Ratchet into this mess. And also it would be easier to move if we all could fly. I'll go talk to them about leaving."
I nodded, "Okay. We should leave today. Go on and talk to them, I'll be down soon." He got up and flew off but not before giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. I smiled as I watched him go, basking in the morning sunlight on the roof. "Your dad's a pretty good guy I guess." I murmured, in a state of euphoria as I lay back and patted my lower abdomen.
Unfortunately, it didn't last for long because the next thing I head was someone saying my name. I whipped around quickly and defensively to see Dylan standing there behind me, his blue eyes filled with anger and worry and his brow furrowed. He stood stiffly, staring at me. "Dylan?" I asked gently, "What's up? You alright?" I was weary of this boy, unsure of how much he knew or what he was thinking.
"I'm fine. I just needed to clear my head a little." He said, coming over to me. I was a little unsure of how to act around him now. I looked him over and took him in. He had the perfect amount of muscles that could be seen with his t-shirt, adorable wind-blown hair that I could run my hands through, intense beautiful eyes, and gentle kissable lips. His tan face was etched in a serious expression and I couldn't turn my eyes away. I was so confused. Being with Fang made me feel bad for Dylan after he was there for me when Fang left. I was even starting to let him in, going on dates and kissing at night. But then there was Fang. I did have sex with him and I was pregnant with his child, so it felt strange to be with Dylan. But Fang and I shared a connection that went deeper than everything. There was absolutely nothing about me that Fang didn't know. Being with him was so crazy, yet perfect and I relished every second of it. They were both what I needed, just in different ways.
I just wasn't quite sure where I stood with Fang, even though he had come back. We did break up and hadn't talked in a long time. It was only by chance we had run into him, and a good thing we did. But, things got messed up between us and I wasn't sure if we could ever get back what we once had. He had changed, and so did I. But was it a change for the better of worse?
I was lost in thought when Dylan spoke again, "So I could see you and Fang are getting pretty tight." He said blankly.
I shrugged, "we were just strategizing." I was telling the truth, "We are going east."
"Oh yeah, when was that decided?" He asked.
"We decided just now." I replied simply, not able to look at his face.
"Oh, so were you going to let the rest of us have a say?" He asked.
I snorted, "When has this ever been a democracy. I still am the leader here!" I snapped, standing up to get away from him before I said something I regretted.
"No!" He said, grabbing my arm to keep me there, "I'm sorry. Really. Please stay." He looked like a sad, lost puppy and my hormones got the best of me, making me all emotional and sappy. Ugh.
"I'm sorry I snapped like that." I said, sighing and sitting down again.
"What does he have that I don't?" Dylan asked quietly, "I mean, why do you love him so much and not me? I try so hard and he just goes around doing whatever he wants and breaking all the rules. I don't get it."
I rubbed my forehead, "I don't either. I really, really do like you Dylan. A lot. Really. I don't know what I would ever do without you. And I'm just confused myself." I said honestly.
"But do you love me?" He asked.
I took his hand in mine and held it gently, as if it was made of glass. "I don't know Dylan. I'm sorry. I know it's not the answer you wanted to hear, but it's the truth."
He nodded and looked down, but then snapped his head back up and leaned in, kissing me with all his might. I was caught off guard, but didn't stop it from happening. It was so sweet and gentler than Fang and my intense kissing. Finally, we let go and just looked at each other, trying to figure out what to say. But, I did what I do best, though. Instead of facing things, I got up and flew away.
I hope you liked it! Reviews are loved! :)