Disclaimer: Anyone with basic knowledge of the English language can figure this out: I'm writing fanfiction. Got it? Good.

Nudge was the only one still awake when they landed. She was lying on her side next to Angel, but she hadn't been able to sleep for hours. It was dark, not just from the smoke but from the sky too, but Nudge's genetically enhanced sight could still see fairly well through the gloom. Max and Fang descended through the smog a ways away from where the younger children were sleeping, and Nudge immediately saw why.

There was something wrong with Max. Fang was carrying her as though she was a child, and her wings were tucked into her jacket. She hadn't been flying at all. When Fang set her down, Nudge saw how her legs trembled and nearly gave out. She refused Fang's support and regained her balance; then they began to walk towards Nudge and the other two.

Nudge's instinctual reaction to this scene was guilt. The flock, or the younger members at least, were rarely exposed to any signs of weakness from their leader. The last time they'd really seen her break down had been over four years ago, on a beach. Nudge had tried to block that experience from her memory the best she could. And now, what added to her guilt was the obvious fact that she wasn't supposed to have seen this most recent display. They had landed away from her on purpose, and whether or not they had planned landing at night, it still added to the overall aura of secrecy.

The second thought she had was that of relief. Nudge's stint of leadership was over. From the moment she had no longer found herself strolling innocently through the zoo, the goal of her existence had been to find Max. Once they found Max, everything would be okay again.

Relief was quickly washed away by an overwhelming sense of fear. Max was here now, but as she and Fang slowly grew closer, Nudge could see what Angel had meant by "broken down." Max's darkened silhouette stumbled occasionally, grabbing Fang's arm to keep from falling despite previously rejecting his assistance. And it wasn't just her physical appearance. Max had always projected a kind of strengthening, reassuring atmosphere, even from afar. But now, as Nudge watched her, she was only overcome with a feeling of despair and grief, a raw and aching sense of hopelessness.

Nudge laid her head back on the ground and closed her eyes. It would be easy enough to pretend that she was sleeping, that she had never seen them land, never watched Max stumble and fall across the uneven ground. But as she began to hear their footsteps drawing closer, began to hear their frightened whispers, she realized that while she could pretend, she would never be able to forget. It made her want to curl up and cry, because she had thought that her problems were over, but in reality, they were only just beginning.

Neither of us would have been able to sleep after Angel's little announcement, so we flew through the night. Actually, make that Fang. He flew. I just curled up in his arms and acted in a manner that can only be described as pathetic. I just couldn't understand why Angel had waited so long to tell us about Iggy. Now that I thought about it, there was really no way he could have survived. He'd had no time to get out. We should have stayed together. I should have made us stay together. We shouldn't have been in such a big city; we should have been somewhere less conspicuous, less dangerous.

You can't change the past, Max, I thought to myself. In the voice's absence, I had to argue with just myself. Rational Max versus Emotional Max. Rational Max usually won, these days. That's why I hadn't even cried over poor Ig. Emotional Max felt awful about that, but she didn't really have a say.

God, maybe I was going crazy.

I started to get cold again, up in the air with the wind whipping against my body. I didn't say anything to Fang because I didn't want him to worry about me. He was probably having the same sort of internal struggle as I was over how to react, although I doubt he had named the facets of his personality. I concentrated on keeping myself from shaking, but that was only to distract me from my real problems. I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt at self-control.

Images swam before my eyes. Angel screaming as an eraser dragged her out of my sight. Ari snarling as he hit Fang's head against a rock, over and over again. Nudge's face as I stumbled over an explanation for almost bleeding out on a beach. Any time I'd ever let my flock down, it was there, played out before me as though on a movie scream. And then I saw Iggy's face with his blank, clouded eyes, a slight smile playing on his lips, then there was a flash of light and a loud noise, and the scene had turned into the pile of bodies from the concrete basement. I knelt down next to one of the victims. He was almost unrecognizable except for his singed, strawberry blond hair…

"Max," said Fang.

My eyes opened abruptly. I felt shaken and sick.

"You okay?" he asked.

"What…? Where are we?" How much time had passed? Had I been asleep?

"We're almost there. I can see where the building used to be. You've been sleeping for maybe two hours now," he answered, addressing my unspoken questions as well as the ones I'd said aloud. "You're shivering," he said, concerned. "Maybe we should land."

"No, I'm fine-" But he we were already nearing the ground. I could see three small bodies next to a crumbling wall, a few hundred feet away from where we had landed. A pang of nausea shot through me as I remembered the bodies in my dream. They're sleeping, Max. Sleeping.

My legs nearly buckled beneath me when Fang set me down, but I recovered in time. I still felt shaky, but the cold was receding now. Either that or I was just going numb.

"You okay?" Fang asked again, holding my arm as I steadied myself.

"I'm fine," I said, pushing his arm away. He looked doubtful. "Really," I told him. "Just… Bad dreams." It was completely inadequate to describe what was wrong, but he accepted it.

"Do you want to walk over from here?" Fang asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah. Thanks." So that Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel wouldn't see him carrying me. Wouldn't see that I was weak.

The ground was slightly hard for me to navigate. My mind kept wandering back to my dream and I still felt kind of dizzy, even though I wasn't cold anymore. Fang was watching me out of the corner of his eye, which annoyed and reassured me at the same time. I looked back at him, meeting his gaze, and promptly stumbled over a rock. He caught me before my knees could scrape the ground. I blushed, biting my lip and feeling pathetic again.

"It's okay," Fang whispered, pulling me back to a standing position. He wrapped his arm around my waist, holding me upright. We kept walking, my face still red and ashamed. I was going to have to hold it together in front of the kids. They needed me to help them, to get them out of this mess.

"I don't know what to do," I confided.

"We'll leave," Fang said, his voice quiet and calm. "Start over somewhere else. It's the only thing we can do."

"There's complications." Such as, you know, my flying (or lack thereof), Angel's little movement issue, and all that stuff. But I didn't want to say it out loud. Fang knew what I was thinking, anyway.

"We'll deal."

I nodded. "We always do."

Author's Note: So I finally went back and fixed the little grammatical mistake that everyone was so kind to point out in the last chapter. (If that sounded sarcastic... Good, because you're being realistic. But please, if I do make mistakes, tell me.) Anyway, I decided that I wasn't going to get anymore reviews if I didn't update, so I think I'm going to give up on that little review requirement thing (again).

I struggled a lot with what order to put the two sections of this chapter in, but I finally put them in like this because that's the order I wrote them in. Most of you probably don't care, but I felt like saying that anyway. The rest of the chapter was actually pretty easy for me, which is usually a bad sign as to quality, but I'm fairly happy with it, so whatever.

Thanks to the following people for their thoughtful reviews: yami1234, therealme1123, senoritasophia13, lion8520, and FangsBestFriend. I didn't get as many reviews as I would have liked, but I'll get over.

I'm not going to set a requirement, but please, if you read this, let me know what you thought! Feedback really means a lot to me.