Disclaimer: I claim no right to the Maximum Ride Universe. Much Love and Please Review!

The rest of the night had been one big blur. Despite the continued presence of his headache, Nick had gone back inside and stayed most of the night with the…well, the flock was the word that came to mind.

The flock.

Staring up at his bedroom ceiling, Nick rolled it around on his tongue and decided that it felt right. It had been a little while before he had realized that they weren't hiding their wings around him. Sweeping down their backs to the backs of their knees, the wings were beautiful. Seeing them made him long to have his own. More than once he had caught himself feeling over his shoulders to see if he could detect the seams of the polymer that Max had mentioned, but it was an exercise in futility.

Early into the morning, he had taken his leave, promising to return the next day to the delight of the younger kids. Even with the vague memories he had, they all seemed so different, so much more grown up. After he had driven home and crawled into bed, another wave of memories assaulted him. He could feel Angel curling up next to him at night sniffling softly because nightmares of the School had woken her again. He saw Gazzy frowning at their old computer with his tongue stuck out between his teeth as he tried to get it running again while shouting at Iggy over his shoulder about their latest explosive experiment. Somehow, Nick manages to drift off to sleep while the parade of memories is still marching.

He smells rubbing alcohol, feeling its sting on his chest where electrodes burned him and watches as a young girl was dragged into the room, her blonde hair in tangles and her body limp. Instincts born of fear demand that he keep his eyes to himself, but curiosity gets the better of him after they shoved her into the wire crate next to his. He holds his breath for a long time, but she doesn't wake up. He can't see her face.

He doesn't dare move to get a closer look or even to rattle the cage a little in the hopes that it would bring her around. He is afraid, what if she's like the others, what if she dies right next to him. She looks normal enough to him, her arms and legs smooth and free of extra fingers or toes or scales. The gown she wears sits oddly across her shoulders, as though they are misshapen. So, that's where her extras are. His own are in the same place, strapped tightly across his back, the nylon restraints pinching his chest and pulling out feathers every time he tries to loosen them.

The girl twitches and moans softly. He suddenly wants to comfort her, but he is still too afraid to move. He doesn't want any more burns. They zapped him last time he tried to help one of the other ones. He doesn't like being afraid.

Then, he can hear her quickened breath and thinks its the end for her. His eyes burn, but he refuses to let the tears fall. He hates when they die next to him, almost as if he causes their deaths, almost as if he's supposed to die. Instead, she gulps and her breathing evens. Slowly, she pushed herself up a little and raises her head. He is pinned by her eyes. They're a shade of green he's never seen before and they're dark with something he's never felt before. He doesn't have a name for what he sees in her eyes, but it makes him feel like everything's going to be okay. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday there will be something to live for.

Carefully, she lays her head back down on the cold plastic, but her eyes do not close. She just continues to stare at him and he starts to shrink more into himself. He can deal with the stares of the whitecoats, they can poke and prod and manipulate him, but their eyes are all cold. Hers blaze and it scorches him.

He doesn't know how long they are there, having their stare down, not moving or blinking. He just knows he doesn't want to look away even though she seems to have the potential to hurt him worse than any whitecoat ever could. Then, suddenly, she smiles. It is small and her mouth barely curves, but it is there.

"I'm Max," she whispers, her voice raspy and hoarse as though she's been screaming. Her hair is in tangles and he can see the bruises on her, but he still thinks she's the best thing he's ever seen.

It takes a few tries, but eventually he manages, "Fang."

She says it back as if trying it out, as if making sure of something. She smiles again and it's wider this time, better. And he knows what he saw in her eyes because it's rushing through him as he hears her voice. Hope.

Nick jerked awake at the sound of pounding on his front door. He sat up, rubbing his chest and ran a hand through his hair before stumbling down the hall to answer his door. Not bothering to see who it was before he opened it, he had to tamp down his irritation when he saw who had woken him.

"Hey, Nick," Lissa said, her voice taking on the sing-song quality that had annoyed him to no end. She always used it when she was trying to manipulate him.

He closed the door enough so that she could only see him as he leaned on the doorjamb. "What do you want?" he asked tiredly.

The expression of aggravation that flitted across her features made him roll his eyes internally. "Well," she began. "I wanted to apologise for the way I acted the other day, trying to hit you and all. And I wanted to thank you-" She spit the words at him as though they tasted bad. "I wanted to thank you for helping me out that night." She offered him a cup of his favorite coffee.

He accepted it warily, but when she didn't seem to be watching for him to take a sip, he swallowed a large mouthful. She'd tried to put stuff in his food before, but she was always pretty obvious about it. She was very bad at trying to deceive him.

She smiled sadly at him. "Can I come in?"

Against his better judgement, Nick shrugged and opened the door wide enough for her to come in. Flipping the lights on, he moved over to the couch and dropped down in a sprawl across its squishy cushions. Taking another drink from the coffee, he set it on the side table and watched her.

Slipping inside, she closed the door and faced him. She dropped her oversize purse on the ground and wrapped both hands around her coffee cup. Her dark auburn hair was curled and pulled back into a half-up style that left a few tendrils curling around her face and she wasn't wearing much makeup. A school club t-shirt over jeans and sneakers completed her look and Nick felt a pang of loss. This was how he had liked her best, simple and unadorned, herself.

She crossed over to sit next to him, her back straight and her eyes on her coffee. "I guess I'm still in shock a little." A short humorless laugh left her mouth. "I've spent so long with you that I've never imagined being with anyone else."

"Billy whats-his-name two years ago?" Nick challenged, yawning as he tried to shake off the lingering fog of sleep.

Lissa scowled at him. "That wasn't on purpose," she snapped. "I swear he put something in my drink."

Nick looked back at her, his face expressionless. "Which is why we didn't break up then."

"Really? Is that why? Or is it because you just didn't care enough to find someone else?" She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just, you never seemed to care. Did you even love me?"

He opened his mouth to say, "Of course," but the words stuck in his throat. Had he loved her? Ever? He yawned again and rubbed his eyes. Surely the caffeine would have started kicking in by now. Only now was his sense of self-preservation rearing its head and all it could do was roar as Lissa leaned over him.

"I didn't think so, Nick, or should I say, Fang?" she said, her eyes flashing with a hardness he had never seen. She slipped a phone from her jeans pocket and pressed a speed dial button.

Through senses that were rapidly growing dull, he heard her say, "Yes, I've got him. Yes, he's neutralized. Do you think I'd make the same mistake again? Just come and get him."

Pain spiked through his skull as he felt himself being strapped to a table. He was younger, he could tell because Lissa was there, too, and she still had the layer of baby fat that she had lost their freshman year of college. She was nodding as whitecoats spoke in her ear, her eyes on him. The memory faded and the twenty-one year old Lissa still leaned over him.

"I told you that you should have been proposing," she said and that was the last thing he heard.