Thank you all so, so SO much for your reviews/favorites/alerts! I hadn't expected to receive so many…it was a wonderful surprise. I replied to the people I couldn't contact at the bottom.

Since Iggy is out cold, we'll be switching briefly to Max's POV…I apologize. I can't wake him up just yet, but who knows, maybe you'll like a chapter in Max POV…

Don't know if I'm overestimating the intensity of the situation, but I'll warn you anyway: possible tissue alert!

Disclaimer: Repeat after me. Kimsa does not own MR. Kimsa does not own MR. :)


In Reverence

Chapter Three


I'd been staring at the white-tiled floor for so long, letting my mind go numb, that it took a while for it to register when a bandage was held out in front of my face. I blinked and looked up to see Dr. Martinez kneeling beside me. In the time my flock and I had been sitting in the waiting room, it was like she'd earned herself a couple hundred worry lines on her face that hadn't been there before.

I very nearly freaked out right then and there. But the kids were watching, so I couldn't break down. Besides, I don't break down. It's just not done.

"Thanks," I said, and reached out to take the bandage from her. When you run into so much trouble that you get used to having your face all scratched up and bruised, you kind of forget that it's not normal to have a big ol' claw-mark right under your eye.

"I'm sorry I couldn't give it to you earlier," Dr. Martinez said. I almost winced — even her voice sounded older.

"That's alright. We were busy. Besides, I think Iggy kind of gets priority in that situation. Since, you know…"

Her eyes dimmed and I heard one of the younger kids, maybe Gazzy or Angel, sniff forlornly from the other seats in the room.

It was driving me crazy to just sit there. It had been almost an hour since the hospital staff had taken Iggy out of surgery, but they weren't allowing us in yet. The only thing that kept me from busting through the door in the first place was Dr. Martinez – she'd convinced the doctors to let her oversee the procedure because, truth be told, it was obvious they didn't know what they were dealing with. I had to explain to them that Iggy's heart was always "fibrillating," and they didn't need to hover around him with those nasty paddles.

So my flock and I just parked ourselves right outside the Emergency Room until someone ordered us to move to the waiting room.

And the waiting…was…killing me.

As if it wasn't bad enough that Iggy was in surgery, the smell and look of the place was getting to me. More than once, I thought I saw the walls closing in around me. I wanted to get up, pace, maybe take off out the door and just fly a couple of laps around the hospital's roof to work off some steam…but there were three things wrong with those ideas.

One: I didn't feel much like doing anything since Iggy was hurt.

Two: Just because one of us was hurt, badly, didn't mean the Erasers were going to cut us loose. They were probably climbing down the ventilation shaft right at that minute. Somehow.

And three: I wanted to be there. Just in case Iggy…you know. Don't make me say it.

Oh, Maximum. Don't overdo it.

I ignored the Voice. Now just wasn't the time.

I swallowed to wet my throat and stared down at my dirty sneakers. "So…how's he…how's he doing?"

Dr. Martinez let out a long sigh and ran a hand over her face. "He's stable. He'd lost a lot of blood, but your donations saved him from any real danger."

I swallowed and reflexively rubbed the bandaged area where the doctors had inserted the needle. "Good to know."

"So he won't die?" Nudge asked warily. I turned at the sound of her voice. It sounded almost as awful as she looked.

Dr. Martinez shook her head. "He's safe. But those…Erasers? Yes. Well, they didn't hold back, from what I can see. They cut deep. And then Iggy didn't get his wings bound straight away…"

I looked away from Nudge's stricken face, silently fuming. "He wouldn't let us in. We tried, but he's still pretty strong, even hurt like that. He was holding the door closed and I didn't want to hurt him even more by just busting through. So I went for you."

"You did the right thing. He could have died, Max."

"I know."

A tense silence fell over us. Gazzy coughed and asked in a wavering voice, "Can we see him yet?"

Dr. Martinez looked conflicted. "I'm sorry, honey, but I'm not sure if that would be best right now. With injuries like his, he should be alone for a while. I don't think the doctors will even want him to leave the hospital for at least two weeks —"

"He'll be out in a couple of days."

We both swiveled to stare at Fang. He was sitting slouched in a chair next to Nudge, his arms folded tightly across his chest and his long legs stretched out in front of him. His face was pale and pinched, his jaw adopting that familiar stubborn, bull-dog sort of look, and I suddenly had to swallow a giant lump in my throat. Even Mr. Untouchable had been scared.

Iggy…

"I'm sorry?" Dr. Martinez blinked. "You think he'll be out so soon?"

"Yeah." He turned and speared her with his dark eyes. There was something scary in his gaze that made me shiver. It was almost like he was daring her to prove him wrong. To tell him that…Iggy was worse off than she'd said he was.

But she wouldn't lie. Dr. Martinez wouldn't…

"We all heal really fast," I interrupted, before either of them (or I) could say something wrong. "What would take two weeks for a normal person to recover from usually takes us only about two or so days."

"Oh." Dr. Martinez nodded again and looked awkwardly at her shoes. "Okay. Well, then…that will be a little easier on all of us."

"Not on Iggy," Gazzy muttered resentfully, glaring at the floor. "He still can't fly."

I made a strained face and explained. "Our wings are the only way we keep ahead of the Erasers. If we can't fly, we can't escape. If we can't escape, we're as good as dead."

"Our wings are like your legs," Angel said quietly. "You can't really run without them."

Dr. Martinez shifted on her knees and stood up. I heard her bones creak and felt sorry for her.

"Well," she said softly, "if Iggy really will heal that quickly, then I suppose he should be waking sometime soon. I don't think he would like to come to in a room with only a doctor, so…"

Crapola. I hadn't thought of that.

"We'll go." I got to my feet and my flock rose with me. I didn't need to look at them to know that their expressions mirrored mine: determined. Pained, but still determined.

"You remember which room it is?" Dr. Martinez asked. I nodded, and she stepped aside to let us go first.

Iggy's room big enough to keep me from feeling completely like a sardine in a can, but the distinctive antiseptic smell hit me like a sledgehammer the second I went in. I felt an instinctive rush of anger when I saw a doctor in a white coat bending over Iggy's unconscious form, staring at him like he was some kind of fascinating test subject. The image triggered a set of memories I'd tried to bury long ago.

A flash of white, glasses and a leery smile, metal glinting against fluorescent lights, pain, scream, blood, cage —

And Iggy was so pale…

A gloved finger, pointing at a red-haired boy cowering in his cage. "That one."

No, not Iggy —

It was too much.

"Get away from him," I hissed through clenched teeth. The startled doctor looked up with wide eyes and glanced at Dr. Martinez, who took one look at my face and asked him to leave. When he didn't and tried to protest, she reinforced her demand with a steely stare that was enough to break me out of whatever state I'd gone into.

The doctor left without another word. I breathed easier.

Angel took my hand in hers and looked up at me worriedly. "Max?"

I shook my head and refused to meet Dr. Martinez's eye. I didn't want to see what was in her eyes.

"I'll be outside," she murmured. "If anything changes, anything at all, just come and get me. Okay?"

I tried to answer and found, embarrassingly, that I couldn't talk past the pain in my throat. Fang turned instead and said, "We will."

I wait until I heard the click of the door closing shut before I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Angel smiled up at me and tugged me towards the bed Iggy was lying on.

Iggy had always been pale, but this was something different than his natural skin color. He looked as colorless as the sheets covering him from his chest down. Shallow, fluttering breaths lifted his chest up and down, up and down, not as deep or slow as they should have been. His numerous bruises looked like black and purple paint against a white canvas, to be poetic. Even his closed eyelids looked bruised.

But it was his wings that really just made the breath rush out of my body. The effect they had on me was different now that the wounds were sewn shut and the bleeding had stopped, but what little relief I held was smothered by the absence of so many feathers. It was like the Erasers just reached in, grabbed a bunch, and cut.

Well, clawed the feathers off is more like it. But don't even make me think about that.

"Max?" Gazzy was staring at Iggy, his partner in crime, with a terrified look on his young face. It hurt me to see him so sad.

"Is he ever going to fly again?"
I swallowed to wet my throat and shook my head. "I…I don't know, Gazzy. I think you have to ask Dr. Martinez."

"She'd have told us if he was gonna be like this for…like, ever, though. Right?" Nudge asked in a quavering voice. She, too, was staring with wide eyes at Iggy's unresponsive form.

"Yeah," I said firmly. "Yeah, you're right. She would have."

Don't get your hopes up if you're not certain of the outcome, Maximum, the Voice said warningly. I ignored it. I had to.

"When's he going to wake up?" Gazzy asked. I shot him a Look, but realized that he wasn't complaining. He was just worried, like any little kid whose brother had been in danger of dying should be.

"I don't know. Another hour or so?"

Angel huffed a determined sigh and released my hand, pulling up a chair beside Iggy's bed and sitting down. She reached out and settled a tiny hand on his sweat-covered forehead. Iggy did not respond. Angel turned to us and examined us each with her serious blue gaze.

"Do you want to say something?" she whispered.

The way she said it struck a chord in me. It just sounded so much like…like something someone said at a funeral.

Not now, Max, I told myself sternly, pushing the thought away. Iggy's fine. He's just sleeping it off.

But was he really alright? Even if he fully recovered from this, without his wings, would he really be back to normal again?

Gazzy shifted from one foot to another, gaining his little sister's attention. "Umm…if you can tell him that I really miss him and I hope he wakes up soon, that'd be great. And I think he's the best partner in crime in the whole world." His voice was raspy with suppressed tears.

Angel nodded and turned to Iggy, her eyes narrowing as she concentrated. "Okay. I think he heard me. Nudge?"

She started and straightened her spine, looking she was about to run a marathon. "Just tell him I'd glad he's alright and…and he better get well soon, and even if he can't fly anymore I'll carry him or something because he's always been with us and he's always gonna be with us, and we won't let the Erasers near him anymore because they're jerks, they're worse than jerks and…ohhh…"

Nudge trailed off with a tearful gasp and Angel offered her a soothing smile. "I'll tell him you said to get better," she said.

"Th-thanks."

Fang met Angel's gaze as she turned wordlessly to him and folded his arms again. "Just relay the message, Angel — Hey, Ig. Wake up, the waterworks are overflowing over here. And don't worry about the wings. We're here for you, big guy."

Mr. Untouchable was being sentimental. Remember what I said about not breaking down? Yeah, it was getting harder not to.

I came back to reality to find my Angel staring straight at me, her bright eyes asking a silent question.

"Oh," I said, and coughed into my hand. "Ahem. Okay. Iggy, you know as well as I do that we don't blame you for what happened. Yeah, Angel told me that you think it was your fault. If it's anyone's fault, it's the Erasers. Okay? So you let them get you riled. Happens to me all the time. And it didn't end differently for you just because you're blind. The Erasers, they uhh…they just needed someone to get to, and you were unlucky enough to be right there. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry we weren't fast enough, I'm sorry that we couldn't get to you before they…before they did this to you. I'm sorry that your wings got hurt. And most of all…I'm sorry that you blame yourself. Because no one deserves to blame themselves for getting hurt."

Angel didn't complain about sending such a long message. She took it in silence and that alone, besides my little speech, was enough to make me cry. So I was surprised when I didn't.

Angel sat back with a tired sigh and rubbed her eyes. "He should wake up soon," she muttered. "Cause he heard us and he's listening."

She lowered her hands and just sat for a moment, staring at Iggy with glazed eyes. Then her lower lip trembled and tears spilled down her dirty cheeks. Angel settled her knees on the chair and leaned over to wrap her small arms around Iggy's neck, being careful not to hurt him.

"We love you, Iggy," she whispered, and planted a kiss on his bruised cheek.

And that's when the dam broke. That's when I broke down.

I buried my face in my hands and just cried. Fang wrapped his arms around me and Gazzy and Nudge pressed their faces into my shirt. I could feel them trembling with left over emotion. Iggy wasn't in danger of dying anymore, but that didn't make all the fear and grief go away.

So there. I broke down and let loose the waterworks. I'm just glad Iggy wasn't awake to see it. He didn't need any more tears.


Please review?

Replies to people I could not contact -

Kendra Phoenix: I'm glad you liked the imagery. Sorry there wasn't much of it in this chapter, but Max isn't a very image-y person. Ironic, isn't it, how I write the blind guy with a better sense of imagery than Max?

Iggy's light: Well...he hasn't given up completely yet.

bookbum: Hope you liked Max. I tried to make her as in-character as possible. It's fun to write from her POV, I think. Excellent writing skills? Thanks! It's nice to know that I can capture the "whole depressing moment."

Tjaiden: Is this soon enough for you? -does dance- My story is addicting!

Annebelle: Haha, thanks!

randomperson: (2 replies) Oho...ahem. Well, if chapter one wanted to make you cry, I wonder what kind of an effect this one had...O.O Unless it really wasn't that depressing. Hmm. Yes, poor Iggy. Glad you liked my writing.

Okay, everyone else had some way for me to contact them. I'm glad you all liked the story and I hope I wrote up to your standards. I'd hate to disappoint. Until the next chapter!

-Kimsa