A/N: I do not own the characters.
This chapter is dedicated to ruby1792, Green.Winged.Mistress (you'll always be katie3llen to me) and Edwardlover1313.
Now for the end.
Max Pov:
(After MR3)
We were flying again, rising above the confusing and troubled Earth, into the simple, perfect, clear blue sky, where everything else was peaceful and made sense...
That night we landed about three hundred miles outside of the colorado sate boarder. Iggy picked the spot, a feild with a thin grove of trees in the center of it, perfect to sleep it.
The next day we were up at sunrise. We flew hard all morning and at mid afternoon I saw the canyon and forests that had been my backyard, before all this. It was on odd feeling to see it again, like I was coming back to someplace I belonged.
I glanced around me, Iggy's eyes were closed. Gazzy's were watering. Nudge had a distant smile on her face, Angel was grinning like mad. Total was straining in the carrier, Fang was ignoring him, eyes set on the building below.
As we got closer I realized what was wrong. The house was whole, undamaged from the fire and the bomb set off nearly three years ago.
We landed in a loose formation near the canyon's edge. From there I could see that the support beams had been replaced. I ran to the front door, Fang and Iggy at my side, I pulled it open in a rush.
There was no sound.
No creak as the door slid along it's hinges, no whispers from the flock. I walked slowly down the high ceilings of the entryway. There was nothing on the walls or floors. Just like when we last lived here.
I drifted into the kitchen, running my hand along the countertop that had seemed to get lower each year. The room had been cleaned, and a singe large cardboard box sat neatly on the counter. I felt my neck prickle.
"Open it." Fang said suddenly from behind me.
I stared at the box, it had no address, just a sentence scrawled in sharpie on the top.
"To Maximum Ride"
I opened the box carefully. Underneath a few layers of paper were pictures, a dozen pictures in plain black frames. They were of the house. Some showed it half mangled and charred, wreaked from the fire, others showed it whole. There were six photographs of feathers, i realized they were not birds feathers. I saw Fang's eyebrows rise when I pulled them out. They were close ups of our feathers, one for each of us.
There was a note buried in the bottom.
Max,
I wish I could have been a better father to you, to all of you.
I heard Fang snort over my shoulder. I remembered Ari dying in my arms, my first flying lesson, Jeb leaving us.I felt a numbing cold wash over me. It was all over, this whole nightmare was done.
The house belongs to you and the rest of the flock.
I felt my eyes tear...the words became harder to read.
...upon your eighteenth birthday you will each get two million dollars. It was money I wired out of Itex into the following accounts...
I skimmed over the numbers, they didn't matter right now. I heard a noise coming from Jeb's room. Nudge or someone was searching it. I skipped to the last few sentences.
I have several boxes in my closet, in them are the original files Itex kept on you, the flock and your clone... I wish you well Maximum.
-Jeb
I heard someone calling my name. I walked absently into Jeb's bedroom to where Nudge, Iggy and Angel kneeled around boxes full of papers and files.
"It's us." Nudge said.
I stared down at the boxes, our lives in the form of files and reports.
"Are these the only copies?" Fang spoke like a shadow behind me.
I nodded.
"It's all there?" Iggy asked, standing still, shocked by the doorway.
"Yes," Nudge replied quietly. "It's all here."
It was here, the memories of our pain put in the most plain and unfeeling wording possible. It was a reminder of what they did to us. I wanted to burn the files, but instead I picked one up. Gently, as if it were glass.
I began to read it, behind me I was vaguely aware that Fang and Gazzy were grabbing files, and paging through them.
Weeks went by.
We still haven't finished reading them all, but we know the important stuff. We know that Fang's mom died shortly after he was born, that Angel and Gazzy have a mother who works at library in Farmont Kentucky. We know that each of us has a past and that now it's not a secret.
We learned that Max II befriended Ari, that she beat him in every hand to hand combat scenario they tested her on. She had never lost until she faced me. We learned that after she fought me she cried.
We learned that we were never given expiration dates.
That was the best gift Jeb gave us. Buried deep in those boxes, along with our pasts and our memories, there was a shot at living.
We took it. We live our lives the way we always have... fast, hard and free. We have scars, we will always have the scars. But now we have hope too.
-twilightjunkie1313