A/N: I don't own Maximum ride. I can't even claim this as an original story idea. I was written as a challenge fic-and has grown into something more time consuming.

None the less, i like it. The words are my own, the feelings my own. Enjoy it.

-Twilightjunkie1313

Fang Pov:

It was late, the sun had already vanished. The canyon looked like a massive black hole with shades of dark grey striping.

But i couldn't sleep, and from the slight sounds coming from the others rooms-nobody else could either.

Max Pov:

It was way dark when i heard a knock at my door. I half expected jeb to just come in, and stick a seringe in my arm. But i got up to answer the door anyway.

It was Fang. He looked tired and on edge, like he had just run for five hours and collapsed on the ground. I stared at him as he shuffled into my room without making a sound.

He sat down on the floor under a window, leaning his back against the wall, hs eyes trained on me. Waiting for me to say something.

"You too?" i said limply. it wasn't a question, but an observation.

He nodded.

"This feels so odd. like a mini-prision." I heard the slight hysterical tone in my voice and didn't doubt he caught it too.

"Try and relax." He said simply, his expression unchanged. I sat down on the floor, in the middle of my room, five feet or so from him.

The look i shot back was uncomprehending.

"You don't have to like this." He began carefuly. "I don't."

"Do you think I made a bad choice?"

"No." He said it in a no questions sort of way. Like he was absolutly sure.

"But?" I began, knowing there was more to this.

"You shouldn't let your gaurd down, not for a second."

Another knock. Fangs eyes shot to the door like lasers.

"Come in." I said quietly, instantly the handle turned and iggy's head poked into the gap.

Iggy shuffled into my room just as silently as Fang had. He sat down on my bed, and then, ralizing it was empty lay down on his stomach.

"Comfy?" I asked sarcasticly. Iggy shook his head, the smile gone.

"Can't sleep here." He began, "I know it's better than a crate but it seems so new."

"We know." I answered him quickly, repressing a yawn.

"We?"

I glanced at Fang. His face was still blank.

"Am i not here?" Fang asked slowly.

"You are quiet- i didn't hear you." Iggy sounded stunned.

Another knock, this time Iggy swung his head toward the door before the sound came. Nudge didn't bother waiting for me to open the door, she just slid in-silently as the boys had.

Behind her was gazzy, sleepy and nervous looking. In her arms, angel. I looked around for a place to set the sleeping angel, and put gazzy. He looked dead on his feet.

"Iggy move left a foot, and share the blankets." I said in a sharp whisper. He did, and i settled angel in then lifted gazzy into iggy's lap.

Nudge settled with her back against my dresser. At least that's what i thought it was.

In truth i had no idea what this was...this whole situation. Judging from my bleary eyed (except for Fang) companions they were all new to this as well.

"What are we going to do?" Nudge managed to whisper. I sat back down on the floor, against another wall, halfway between Fang and Nudge.

"Nothing." Fang answered resolutly.

"But we have to do something!" Nudge's voice was building, i could sense her frustration and anxiety. Iggy's head lowered, sadly it seemed.

"No we don't." Fang said evenly. Iggy looked toward him.

"But..." Nudge was winding up her defense, she wanted to go, to run and be out of this place.

"We stay. We keep our guard up. This is better than the school, and you know it." His voice got a deadly cold edge, but only for a moment.

"He hasn't lied, not yet." Iggy began. "He could have, he could have told us anything to get us out of there, but he told us the truth."

"No." Nudge said simply. I could see it in her eyes, jeb was a scientist. She couldn't trust him, and neither could we. But i wouldn't let this turn into a fight. Not now.

I sighed. In a second Fang's eyes were locked on me, iggy's head was turned and Nudge fell silent.

"We stay, for now. Like Fang said. If something happens, if he lies, or somebody shows up, we leave. Drop everything and bolt for it. Iggy will take gazzy, and i'll get angel."

Fang Pov:

She weighed every word carefully, i watched her. She had to, it was our escape plan. She wouldn't repeat it, and she wouldn't have to. Each of us learned, in the hellhole of a school, that something said only once is more important than something said a dozen times. Thanks to our special modifications, we could remember most things word for word.

I tried to push memories of the school from my mind. But there was nothing to fight them with. No replacement memories of better days, no mantra to repeat over and over until the images went away.

I had a handful of memores from a place i didn't belong in. I looked around Max's room. Nudge was leaning sleepily against her dresser. I had learned, from inspection of my own room, that the dresser had a few spare blankets in it. The similarities between this place and the school made me sick. The monotone, identically furnished rooms were bigger versions of our crates. Theonly real improvement was the windows. Somehow that made all the diffrence.

Iggy Pov:

It was quiet for a long time. Nothing but the sound of rythmic breathing and nervous shifting.

"We need to make this ours." Gazzy said suddenly. I looked at him, feeling everyone else doing the same.

"How?" Max asked slowly. Her voice was soft but present, like heat from embers. Comforting, but able to burn.

"We need something that is just ours." Nudge mused aloud. "Something only we do with eachother...just us."

"Like a handshake?" I said outloud, remembering Fang's description of two men greeting each other at the truckstop. There was a silence.

"There were these two guys. They knew eachother, and as a greeting, I guess...they shook hands." I heard Fang's neutral voice explain quickly.

"We need something more us." Nudge muttered. I heard a mumble of agreement from Max.

"Fists." Came a voice, it took me a moent to know it was Fang's.

There was a quiet.

We were fighters, at heart. After living through the school it was something engraned into each of us. It was something that could never be taken away. Fists made sense.

"A stack." I said easily, thinking out loud.

"Perfect." Max agreed.

So there in max's cell-like bedroom we stacked fists. I felt my hand along the five arms and fingers. They felt intertwined, like a giant knot. Then i added my own hand to the stack. I felt a small hand brushing mine, then another, and another.

I realized after the hands pulled away that we would never stop doing that. No matter how far away from here we were, or how old we grew up to be. It was something that was ours, and nobody else's. It was just as Max has said it was...perfect.

Max Pov:

It was late. The hand on the clock has moved a few numbers, though i didn't know how to read it. I guessed it was about one in the morning, maybe later. The flock was asleep, and Fang was awake. Staring at me, his eyes dead in thought.

We hadn't said a word to each other since Iggy went to sleep. I glanced at each of them in turn, Nudge on some spare blankets, curled up. Iggy, Gazzy and Angel curled onto the bed. Fang mirroring my position, knees by his sholders, curled up but still sitting. Arms wrapped around his legs.

"They're asleep." He said simply. Moving his eyes over each body in turn.

"Yes."

"It's odd." He began suddenly.

I raised an eyebrow. Something he said popping into my mind. I had questions, regrets.

"You said you don't like this." I began, "Why?"

He stared at me for a while, thinking.

"The same reasons you don't."

Fang Pov:

Eventually Max nodded off. And i was left with my memories.

The countless hours i spent doubled over, holding my stomach and dry heaving in my cage. The I.V's that were pushed into my arms. The mazes to test reflexes and agility, full of each new recombant the school made. The hundreds of burns and bruises that each of us were covered in. Iggy's sobs as he was led back into his crate, blind after an experimental surgery. They had to all but carry him back, throw him in the crate. For weeks afterwards i had nightmares, where i could hear iggy's voice screaming.

Eventually i fell asleep against the wall. The I.V marks and fres bruises were still there, on y skin. But that night the nightmares never came.

And for that i was thankful, because here may have been strange and new.

But it was nothing like what we had left behind.

-Twilightjunkie1313