A/N - Longest chapter eveeeer xD You're welcome. This story probably has two or three more chapters left in it. Thanks for reading and reviewing. ^^

Memorie of You

Chapter 12

Nudge POV

When I woke up, everything was fine. I was with the flock, and everything was alright. Or so I thought. In a millisecond, I had no idea where I was, and what was worse, I didn't know who I was with. The faces of the people I was with were completely strange to me, it would be like looking at people in masks and having no idea who was under them. When I blinked a second later and rubbed my eyes, the faces changed to that of the flock. I remembered.

Then, I blacked out again, and I couldn't remember a thing. But that time, it was for a longer period of time before I remembered again.

After that, it was a short period of time again that I couldn't remember. When I finally did, I looked around me.

I was in the car, and I'd been sleeping for almost an hour, even though it was only nine thirty or so. We were driving to California, set on buying a new house with the money that we had. Nothing that fancy, just something for us to live in. Fang had been driving us since this morning when we woke up on our front lawn.

But waking up and not remembering, now that was scary. It was just a replay of what had happened in the hospital when I hadn't recognized Iggy. It felt unfamiliar, and I was afraid. Afraid of what would happen if my memories were failing me. I looked at Angel, and her hand was on mine.

"I told you that you might forget at first," she explained. "I put your memories back in your head for you. It'll be fuzzy for a little while at first, so when you start to forget things, I'll read your mind and know, and then I'll restore all of your memories, okay? It'll stop soon."

"No," I shook my head. "This is serious, and this is different. This isn't like the other times, when it was just a haze. This time, the memories, well, it was like they were just ripped out of my head. It was sudden. It was scary. Angel, I don't know what happened. It was never like this before."

I looked around the car. Everyone had dozed off but Fang, Angel and I. Fang was driving and he had his earphones in, so he might as well have been asleep. No one else knew about the new problem but me, and I didn't entirely want to get them involved just yet. They had all done enough worrying about me for one lifetime.

"Well…" Angel began. "You're not gonna like this…maybe I shouldn't tell you…"

I grabbed her shirt collar. "Oh, you'll tell me, all right. Because if you don't tell me, I'm gonna open this car door and throw you out. And then you'll have to hitchhike, you'll get in a truck with a nasty old truck driver, he'll get drunk and the truck will crash, you'll tumble out and lie on the side of the road, gasping your last breath as you wonder why you didn't tell me. Then, a vulture will pick you up and carry you away, feed you to her young and then you'll still be thinking of why you didn't tell me."

She released herself from my grip. "Okay, okay, chill. To be honest, I didn't think you could get there from here." She took a deep breath. "Well, here's how it works. Anyone who has some of your memories –basically, anyone who's been around you- can have access to yank your thoughts around and reach inside your head, if they're involved with the thought.

"Now, by looking in your head, I could tell you that it's your agent's stepfather that's pulling all the strings. By being around you, he got to be involved with all of us, and therefore all of your memories. He can yank you around all he wants now. But I'd be lying. It isn't him. He's not close enough to you. He doesn't know how."

She shook her head. "No. The person who's yanking you around is your friend, his daughter. She's close enough to you, even after such a short time, that she can actually control your memories as well as we can, Max and the others just don't know it! Think about it. You blacked out for a short time, then a long time, then a short time again. Isn't that just a shortened version of SOS?"

My head was spinning. I needed coffee. With a few billion sugar packets. "What's SOS?"

"SOS," she began, "Is Morse Code for 'Help'. It was believed that it used to mean 'Save Our Ship', but that's a lie. A backronym, if you will. Yes, it's a word! The point is, Morse code is a series of dashes and dots. 'S' is three dots, and 'O' is three dashes. If you shorten it, that's dot, dash, dot. Dot is short, dash is long. And you had one short memory blackout, followed by a long one, then a short one. She's calling for your help, Nudge!"

"What? She needs my help? What could she need my help for?" I asked. It was much too early in the morning to be having conversations like this, I was still half asleep. Of course, I knew Angel knew that, but this seemed desperate enough, according to her.

"It is!" she groaned. "I don't know what it is, I can't read her mind! But if we don't get there soon, she'll be in big trouble! Nudge, if we don't get there in a few hours, we won't be able to save her life!"

Back in California

She had started to panic long ago. She was past freaking out. This was completely insane. When his ninjas failed at killing off the flock, something in him had snapped. He had burned down their house, but she had been prepared for that with her check to Nudge. It wasn't cheap on her part, but she had managed. What mattered now was that he was playing the old 'let's hang her over a pot of boiling liquid' trick.

It was true. She was roped to the chair and once again, duct-taped so that she couldn't scream, while the chair was hanging from the ceiling, suspended by ropes that seemed to be getting thinner by the minute, all while her own stepfather had turned into some evil villain, laughing maniacally occasionally.

It wasn't really enough that he had loved her mom, he had always hated kids and treated her terribly. It wasn't like she had any other siblings to keep her company, and it was hell growing up with the man who was so kind to her mother and horrible to his own step-daughter. No, the man needed to be locked up in a straight jacket and a padded cell with a bag over his head.

But it wasn't helping anything for her to be sitting there and making fun of him, she had to do something, anything, to live. This guy was psychotic enough to kill her, that was for sure. And she might not have been "Max", or ever fought "Erasers" or ever lived in a cage, but this was just as life-threatening.

Magic hadn't saved Nudge. If you wanted Magic, you could stick your head in a Harry Potter book and pretend that your Hogwarts letter was "late". Nudge had made it clear to her that the flock could do anything, and she was positively sure that it included fixing her memories. If something that incredible worked, anything could.

So she concentrated on all that she had learned from her father before he'd died. He'd been a history teacher, and they didn't have a lot of money. Maybe that was why she'd been an agent, always wanting a richer life. She remembered sitting on her father's lap and not reading Winnie the Pooh but a history book of some sort, because her father strongly believed in learning from the past.

She thought back to the day when her father had gotten an old dusty book off the shelf and sat down on the mothball-smelling armchair that she loved, and sat her on his lap, opening the book. It was a book about the Titanic, the famous ship that had hit the iceberg and sunk in 1912.

Around halfway through the book, the ship had started to sink, and her younger self had been chewing her nails off, dying to know what happened, even though she knew it wasn't going to be a happy ending. When they explained how they signaled other ships, she had caught on quickly.

The ship had sent out a CQD and an SOS in every direction, to every ship within miles of their location, trying to get someone, anyone to save them. At the time, her father had taught her that 'SOS' was sometimes referred to as 'Save Our Ship', a backronym, for that wasn't what it really stood for.

It was Morse code, and the concept fascinated her, that people could communicate with dots and dashes. SOS was simply three dots, three dashes, and three more dots. Easy to remember and a cry for help to other ships.

Right when she remembered that feeling, that knowledge of a cry for help, she didn't realize that a signal went off in her brain and her connection to Nudge was put to the test. Subconsciously, she sent a cry for help directly to Nudge, who didn't even know what SOS was. Luckily, her sister did.

But she didn't know that. All she knew was that she was hanging by a thread over a vat of boiling liquid, and it wasn't going to be pretty.

Max POV

Nudge caught me admiring my ring again. But I just couldn't help it. It was so big and pretty and I didn't know how in the hell Fang afforded it, but it made me feel proud just to wear it, not because I felt rich, but because Fang had cared enough to give it to me. I was inspecting my reflection in the shiny surface.

"You're so lucky!" she whined.

"Hah, don't you wish you had one just like it?" I teased. Fang rolled his eyes next to me.

"I'll take it back and use the money to buy lottery tickets," he muttered.

"Iggy, why don't I have a ring?" Nudge complained.

"Not everyone had time to go to the jewelers and kiss up to his girlfriend!" Iggy growled at Fang. "That's like cheating. Nudge, I'll get you a ring, just you wait."

And that's exactly what he did.

Fang pulled up to a fast-food restaurant at the nearest town, clearly wanting to take a break from one hellish hour of driving, the big baby. I ushered the flock inside, and I was pretty sure we cleaned out the entire kitchen when they finally handed us the tray. I cackled as I proceeded to our table, passing out food for everyone.

Halfway through his third cheeseburger, Gazzy looked around, and his gaze lingered on something: one of those little machines where you put fifty cents in and get a prize. He leaned over and whispered something in Iggy's ear, and I knew it couldn't be good.

Iggy got out of his seat and went up to the counter with a twenty dollar bill, asking for the entire change in quarters. The cashier groaned, after having been through the whole kitchen searching for the last cheeseburger, and went in the back to get some more quarters. In five minutes, Iggy was over inserting quarters into the machine.

We all crept out of our seats and walked over to the machine to see what Iggy was up to. Turns out that the 'prize' was a piece of jewelry, a necklace, a bracelet, earrings, or a ring. Iggy knew as well as I did that there was one in there, and he was going to get it, even if it was made out of plastic.

"No," Angel rolled her eyes. "You are not getting Nudge's engagement ring out of a fast food restaurant machine. Not to mention it being plastic, Iggy. Don't you have class?"

"I think it's kind of original and sweet," Nudge surprised everyone by saying. "Let's just see if he can get it in forty tries. Let's just see."

He inserted coin after coin, and he was losing money fast. Every time the little container dropped out, Angel would open it and see if there was a ring. If there wasn't, well, that was just one more necklace for her stash of sparkly things. In no time, she had a whole pile of bracelets, earrings and necklaces – everything but a ring. Iggy was having absolutely no luck.

After a while, we all sat down and listened to the soft clink of the quarters and the slot opening, spouting out plastic box after box, all lacking a ring. Iggy was getting frustrated, struggling with all his might to get a ring. Well, as hard as you can struggle while putting a quarter into a machine.

He might have gotten more depressed, but Angel only got happier as she got all the winnings that no one else wanted. In no time she was decorating herself with it, not caring at all if Iggy got his ring, but checking all the same. Minutes later, he was left with only a dwindling handful.

Nudge was watching curiously, even hoping that he would get the ring instead of buying her a fancy and expensive one. She was the only thing that was encouraging him as he slid in quarter after quarter.

My eyelids were just starting to droop when I noticed that it was his last quarter, and they snapped open. He closed his eyes –not like he needed to- and slid it into the slot, wincing when the small plastic box slid into his hand. He opened it, and into his hand fell a gold plastic ring with a blue fake stone. He felt it in his hand, and smiled at his luck.

He walked up to Nudge and slid it onto her finger. Strangely, she had never looked happier. She jumped into his arms and kissed him like it was the first time, and I elbowed Fang. "Why can't you get me a plastic ring?"

He held up a finger and walked over to the machine. He took out two quarters and let them fall with a clink into the machine, and waited until the box popped out. He opened it and smirked as a ring with a red stone fell into his hand. He offered it to me with a grand sweep of his arm, and I took it, smiling.

And he leaned into kiss me, too. I smiled through the kiss as Gazzy gagged and Angel pointedly looked away. We stayed there for five minutes before Gazzy had a heart attack and we had to cart him away. Just kidding! But we did have to get back on the road, leaving Fang to drive again.

"I love you," I sighed to him once we were inside.

Angel POV

"Shouldn't we be focusing on more important things, like the fact that Nudge's agent could die if we don't get there soon? Your stupid ring thing cost us a half an hour! We need to move, people! Floor it, Fang!" I directed, and he did just that. We were off on the road again, and speeding toward California. I didn't care if a policeman saw us. I'd just control his mind anyway.

"We'll be there soon," Fang assured me. "We've been in California for a while now, you guys have been so preoccupied with Iggy's little ring that you forgot to ask. You and Nudge need to help us a little bit. We need to find where Nudge's agent worked and find her there. That's where the trouble would be."

We all agreed. The next hour was spent in silence as we drove across California. When we got close enough, we parked the car off to the side of the road and took everything worth stealing with us. We would come back for the car later, but it would be faster flying. Nudge and I led the way as we ushered the flock through the city.

I was worried about her. I used to think that having an adult friend would be weird, but all I thought about right then was that we had to get her before anything happened to her. She helped Nudge when no one else did, and I wasn't just going to forget that.

We walked through the front door of the building, scanned our eyes for the front desk and rushed over where a woman was sitting. Once she saw us, she probably knew who we were, but it didn't seem like she was going to call security. Without even asking us what we wanted, she stood up.

"Listen," she whispered. "I was in the boss's office the other day when he had a woman tied up with duct tape over her mouth. I recognized her – she was his stepdaughter. No one knows, but he has her in the basement of the building. He's probably going to kill her."

Max reached over and grabbed her shirt collar, pulling her closer. "What the hell is your problem?" she snarled. "You'd just let her die? Is that the kind of person you are? Her life is at stake!"

"I can't lose my job!" she gasped. "My husband…leukemia…he already fired me, I'm not even supposed to be here! But this isn't about me. Hurry if you want her to live!" Max released her and she fell to the floor, gasping for breath. By the time she got up, we were already gone. We were running down the emergency staircase, hearts pounding.

Once we got to the bottom, it was a maze of doors and walkways. I couldn't tell which one to enter, and I could just barely hear muffled thoughts, but they didn't give away any locations. I was stuck, and I didn't know where to go.

"Gee, maybe we should go through the door with the large 'Do Not Enter' sign taped on," Fang said sarcastically. I slapped my forehead because I knew he was right. Curse it all, he was perceptive when the rest of us were panicking.

Max raced to the door, with Nudge and I close behind. I pressed my head to the door and heard thoughts, coherent panicky thoughts. I could hear Nudge's agent's last thoughts as her chair got lower, lower, lower and closer to that vat of liquid…

"Fang, Iggy, guard the door!" Max yelled. "Make sure no one goes in, and make sure no one comes out!" And with that, we all shoved our weight against the door, breaking it off its hinges. Fang and Iggy stayed behind, and they vanished from my vision as I whirled around and chased Max, Nudge and Gazzy inside.

We were running on a walkway that led above the floor down below, where the vat of liquid was inevitably located. I could just barely see Nudge's agent hovering from the ceiling, and I smiled as I saw that we weren't too late. I was just about to jump into the air and grab her when a knife flew past my face, so sharp that it sliced my hair short on one side. I whirled around and saw her stepfather standing there.

Without another word, Max leapt forward and grabbed his shirt collar, launching him off the edge of the platform and down into the liquid. But he was too quick. Just before he landed, he shot a grappling hook up and onto the ceiling, pulling himself up and escaping a boil-y fate.

He swung off the grappling hook and jumped with amazing accuracy for an old man, slamming down on top of Max, wrapping one beefy hand around her neck, cutting off her air supply. His eyes fixed on Gazzy and he threw another knife straight at him, catching his jacket and pinning him to the wall. What was this guy, the king of knives? I knew if I moved to save Gazzy, I would be next, and Max would be next to helpless.

"You're not getting her!" he cackled. "I'm through with employees who can't do anything right, through with daughters who won't obey like good little girls!" And with that, he threw another knife, straight at the only rope supporting her from falling in the boiling liquid.

Outside the Door

Fang tried to ignore the sounds of the struggle, because Max had given him an order, but boy did he want to go in there and save the girl he was in love with. They could be hurt, or worse. And what was the point of having a blind guy guard the door? Like that would help.

Iggy sat in silence, knowing that Max would save the day like she always did. It probably wouldn't end there, he knew that. Something had been nagging at his brain ever since he had gotten Nudge that ring, and now it was eating away at his soul. Yeah, soul of a poet, Iggy.

"Fang?" Iggy's quiet voice cut through the sounds of the fighting, and Fang looked up. Iggy rarely sounded so serious, always cracking jokes. To be honest, the seriousness in Iggy's voice scared him, but he wouldn't have told anyone else that.

"Yeah, Ig?" Fang asked casually.

"You're so lucky," Iggy mumbled. Fang was just about to ask why, but Iggy spoke again. "When you and Max get married…you can bet that's the one time in life she'll wear a pretty dress. She'll shine, Fang. It'll be her special day. Nothing else will matter in the world but her."

"And when it happens for Nudge and I…she'll be the most gorgeous thing anyone ever saw. I can see her with her hair up and smiling…it'll be priceless. When she walks down the aisle and looks at me, it's supposed to be magical when I pull the veil back and look at her. Isn't that the best moment, that you remember for the rest of your life?"

He rubbed his forehead as a tear slid down his cheek. "I won't even be able to see it. I'll never see it." Fang crawled over and patted Iggy awkwardly on the back as Iggy's body wracked with the sobs.

Max POV

I'll say it right now – the knife never touched the rope. The minute the knife was thrown, Nudge knew what she had to do to keep her friend from dying. No one was expecting for her to jump right in front of the knife, but she did, and time should have stopped. In the movies and books, time always stops. Death is worthwhile and important. So why did everything explode when she died? Why didn't I get even one moment of peace to process it?

The knife hit her square in the chest, and I didn't know if it hit her heart, but judging from the amount of blood that spilled onto her clothing, I'd say that it got her pretty good. She fell to the ground, unconscious. No clutching at her bleeding chest, nothing. She was still. The knife fell and was caught standing straight up on the floor.

Angel ran at him, fury in her eyes as she had that look in them. The look that said that she couldn't pick up any thoughts from Nudge, and she just couldn't be dead. She ran towards him, but all he did was chuckle and throw another knife. Angel landed with a thud on the floor, a knife in her leg.

Gazzy broke free of the knife and ran at the man, and then the irony came into action. He ran at him, a rage in his eyes, and he tripped over Nudge's body. He tripped over her legs and screamed in pain as the knife that was standing straight up got him in the side. It didn't stick all the way through, it snagged on him and then fell over. I was grateful…it didn't look like he was going to die.

He turned away from Nudge and back to me. He grinned wickedly and dragged me over to the edge. I flipped over just as he pushed me off and caught the edge with my fingers. I was hanging by one hand over the boiling liquid.

And you know what? I thought it was the end for all of us. We would all die one by one, and I was almost resigned to it. It had been a good fight. And I could say a lot of things about how Nudge died and we died with her, but I'd be lying.

Because right then, he fell off the edge, too, and Nudge was in front of me, holding the knife he'd used to 'kill' her. The problem with it was, the old man grabbed onto my leg, and my hand was sweating. My hand slipped from the edge before Nudge could grab me.

Now, if I thought that back there was the end, that was nothing compared to what I felt like now. It was one of those 'well, shit' moments. And then, I discovered something very important – I wasn't dead. I looked above me, and I was hanging onto the rope attached to his stepdaughter's chair. Then, it was payback time, bitch.

I kicked my leg out, and the old man attached to my foot flew off. He landed just where I'd aimed for – right in the boiling liquid. I screwed my eyes shut and didn't look as I heard a scream, and then it ended. He was gone. I let myself fall off the rope, and whipped my wings out, smiling at the feeling.

We were free.

I grabbed Nudge's agent, and unwrapped her from the rope and the duct tape. I flew her back to where Nudge was waiting, and she threw her arms around her in a tight hug.

"I never got your name," Nudge whispered.

"It's Victoria," she answered with tears in her eyes.

Outside the Door – Fang POV

After all that waiting and thinking that maybe, just maybe they weren't going to be okay, I saw Max and the others trudge out. Gazzy had blood all over his side, Angel's whole leg was soaked in red, and Nudge was supporting her agent. But none of that really mattered to me as I stepped forward and swept Max into my arms, holding her to my chest.

I wrapped my arms around her and wondered if she could hear my heart beating as fast as it was. I tilted her chin up. "Never do that to me again," I whispered, and pressed my mouth to hers. Her fingers knotted in my hair and I brought us closer in desperation, not caring who saw.

I didn't know why I'd waited so long to ask her to marry me, or even to tell her that I loved her, no matter how much it killed me when she went out with Sam or pulled away the first few times I kissed her. I'd realized something very important that day.

No matter what happened, I'd always have Max. She's my whole world, the one person I can't live without. I've always loved her, from when I was a little kid in the School. It killed me to leave her for the few months that I did five years ago. And I know that I'll never lose her again.

Okay, when I was trying to explain SOS/Morse code, my brain got fried. If you don't know what CQD is, go to Wikipedia. Thank god I didn't have to write more about ninjas in this chapter. I got to write about old guys throwing knives! xD Thank so much for putting up with my warped sense of death by frying in boiling liquid...pleaes leave a review!

~Rachel