Disclaimer: I claim no right to the Maximum Ride universe. Please review and sorry about the wait! By the way, I'm sorry if this chapter's off. I read FANG right before writing this and I've been in a slight depression ever since. Thanks to James Patterson for ruining my days yet again and nearly killing my muse. Bastard. Anyway, thanks for continuing to read. Please Review!

Nick woke in degrees, small sensations washing over him in waves. It felt as though he were flickering in and out of a corporeal existence as the soft texture of whatever he lay on rubbed against his skin for a second before disappearing and leaving nothing behind. The same thing happened as he heard voices speaking in low tones near his head, a slow build from whispers and back to nothingness.

Little by little, the few seconds of sensation turned into many seconds, and then minutes. When he was finally able to pop an eye open, he was rewarded with the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.

Max was curled up in a chair next to the bed in which he appeared to be laying. Her golden hair was swept over one shoulder and her chin rested on her fist. A book lay open on her lap but her eyes were closed. He rolled to his side to see his surroundings better, grimacing at the dull ache still throbbing at the back of his skull. The rustling of the sheets pulled her out of the doze and she blinked at him for a few seconds before she realized that he was awake.

"Hey," she said, a soft smile spreading across her face. She flipped the book shut and folded her hands across it.

"Hey," he answered. His eyes slowly wandered around the room, taking in the blue walls papered with concert posters and chalk drawings. White Christmas lights stretched from corner to corner, half of which were illuminated and served as the only light source in the room. "Where -?"

She untucked her legs and stretched them out in front of her. "My room. You've been out for a while. We were just going to leave you on the couch, but when it didn't seem like you were waking up after a couple of hours, Iggy and I moved you up here." She put her feet on the floor and tucked her hands under her knees, leaning forward so that her hair swung out around her face.

Nick did a quick inventory of himself and determined that he was in mostly working condition. He swung his legs to the side and levered himself into a sitting position. "How long was I out?"

Max shrugged. "About thirteen hours. You seemed to wake up a couple of times, but it was mostly active dreaming."

"Thirteen hours?" So long?

"Yep. Jason called and I told him you swooned over seeing me again."

His head snapped up and his eyes narrowed, but she was smiling with a teasing glint in those enchanting emerald eyes.

She laughed. "Just kidding. I did tell him that I wasn't feeling well enough to go out and you decided to keep me company. He certainly understood that, although, he demands a rain check. Apparently, he really wants to meet me." She started to kick her feet in little swirls as she kept her eyes glued to his face. As if coming back to herself, she blinked rapidly and looked away from him.

"I'm sure he does," Nick said wryly, his attention more focused on the play of light across her fair skin than on the conversation. Even as he watched her, he could feel the beginnings of an unfamiliar emotion knotting in his chest. It wasn't unpleasant or painful, just different and unexpected. He wanted to touch her, his fingers itched with the need.

Her gaze snapped back to him as he was contemplating touching her. "What do you remember?"

He shook his head to clear it from thoughts of her, but found that she occupied even more space as he tried to separate real from fiction. "I remember," he said slowly. "I remember the fight with Ari that gave me these scars." He pressed his hand to his side, just over the four parallel lines crossing his ribcage. "I remember feeling really bad about dislocating your arm that one time. I remember waiting with Nudge at the top of that cliff with the hawks, waiting for you to find us."

The muscles of her arms flexed as Max squeezed the underside of her legs. "I was so scared then." A shadow flickered over her features. "He died a few months later, you know. Expired and all."

Nick didn't know what to say. The few memories of Ari he had gained weren't exactly complimentary. The boy had only caused Max pain and it still made Nick want to crush him.

"So, how'd it happen?" she asked. "Getting them back?"

He rubbed his palms together and placed them on his knees. He had no doubt anymore that he had been the victim of some cruel scientific experiment, but it was still hard to reconcile the two halves of who he had believed he was and who he actually was. "Like watching through mist. The implanted memories start out solid and fade away into the real ones." He shook his head so that his bangs fell over his eyes.

Max nibbled on her bottom lip as she listened to him. She swept her hair behind one ear and stood. "Crazy."

He watched her pace from beneath the fringe of his dark hair. He didn't want to admit it, but his eyes definitely followed her hips more than her path. His newly acquired memories reminded him of the gradual strengthening of his love for her, from viewing her as a sister and friend to a young woman that stirred desires in him that no one should feel for a sister. The fact that she wore baggy sweatpants did nothing to quell the power she held over him. "What about you?" he managed, glancing away from her.

"It's kind of like peeling away layers a bit at a time. Similar to the bleeding through effect you're experiencing, but I think it's a little different," she suddenly spun and sat down next to him. "Like, I also start out with the implanted memory, but one at a time, the elements disappear. People just vanish one at a time from a crowded place until there's no one left but me and then the layers start piling back on again in the same way until the original memory is complete."

They sat shoulder to shoulder and he was glad for the press of her body against his, no matter how slight. He felt more alive that he could ever remember with her there next to him.

"I don't like this...not knowing," he admitted, feeling more at ease in her presence even than with Jason.

She swiveled to face him. "It's hard. Trying to reconcile the two halves of what you are and what you thought you were. We're all different from what we were, but we're still ourselves."

He quirked a corner of his mouth at her. "How long does that take?"

"I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out how I relate to you exactly. I've only just remembered specifics yesterday." She sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face. "And I'm still working out how to track anything still coming after us. Things aren't much different from when we were forced to forget. They still have the tactical advantage, but we've got more knowledge than they think."

Nick carefully reached over and grasped her hand. She shivered. "Whatever it is," he promised. "We'll get through it together. That much I know."

She squeezed his hand hard and a layer of the apprehension in her gaze melted away. "I'm really glad you're back," she whispered.

He stared at their hands, twined together, his fingers rubbing absently through the dips of her knuckles, and wondering how many had fallen to her wrath. Transparent images trailed through his mind of the woman next to him as a teenager, her hair long and wild and whipping around her as she darted in and out of an aerial fight, her fists swift and deadly.

"Whatcha thinking?"

"I was thinking about how much I liked watching you fight," he said honestly. He dragged his gaze up to her face, meeting her eyes for a second before sliding down her face to her lips. He still couldn't remember ninety percent of his life prior to the memory modification, but he did remember, with vivid detail, how much he had wanted to make her stop and just look at him. To make her take a minute and really see him. Steeling himself, Nick carefully reached up and curved his free hand around the back of her neck in the optimal position to pull her forward into a kiss.

Her eyes were wide and shimmered with a thousand things he didn't have the brainpower to decipher. Without saying a word, he applied gentle pressure and leaned in, his whole body tingling in anticipation. Their mouths were barely a breath apart and a powerful sense of triumph rocketed through him as –

"Fang!"