Another chapter update, again, sorry I was gone for so long. Um, you can check out some stuff I've been doing on my Deviantart site if you're curious.

Thanks for all the love in your reviews!!!!

Enjoy!

Create A Chain

Chapter 12

The Things You Least Expect


"We're going to Disney World." I laughed shortly after the flock had chased me around the park. Fang had managed to tackle me to the ground, Angel jumping on top of me shortly after.

"Weren't we supposed to go to Disney two years ago? But we decided to go to – " Nudge began.

"Yes." Iggy, Fang, and I cut Nudge off at the same time. "But we're going now, that's what matters." I finished. I sat up, pushing Fang and Angel off, they were so heavy. "We'll grab some lunch and then we'll be off. Go ahead and get your things ready." I smiled falsely. One by one each of the flock members left until only Fang remained beside me.

"You could stop that, you know." Fang knelt beside me, grasping my hand gently. I looked up; his words confused me. "I jerked you away from the life you were living, you can't deal with so many changes so fast. You're hiding so many things, like your apathy. How you never got better. Stop acting, especially not in front of your husband." He pulled up my hand and kissed the vein on the inside of her wrist. My face flushed a bright red and I kicked Fang square in the chest, scooting away as fast as possible.

"Don't do that!" I stuttered, my cheeks burned from the kiss. People just don't kiss there! I mean, it's one of the few vital spots body language tends to hide! I calmed down a lot faster than I normally would have, especially before I found out who I was. Apathy made it's way to my face, entering my heart soon after; by then, Fang had recovered from my kick. "I am happy, Fang. I'm free, I'm with the flock, I with you, and hell, I'm married to you…"

"But?" Fang arched a brow and he crawled closer to me.

"I was at the school… and not as the experiment but as the experimenter. I know I can't compare to the flock's time, including yours, at the School but of the time that I've spent as both, there's only psychological pain and emotional pain. Those experiments passed their physical pain to me, they got attached to me and I got attacked to them and it hurts so bad. I died so many times, you have no idea how many times the experiments died right in front of me and I couldn't cry for them, Fang… I couldn't because I had to play face in front of the fellow scientists… It hurts and I can't be happy when they've died… DON'T DO THAT!" I snapped, feeling Fang attempting to ebb his way into my mind. He was attempting to comfort me. "When you get hurt, it takes a while for you to heal. I'm hurt Fang, I don't know if I'll ever get better."

"We'll help you get better." Fang promised, leaning close and kissing my forehead. "I already started helping when I took you away. Just stop pretending, the only person you can fool is the Gasman." Fang stood up, offering a hand to me. "Now get up, it's time to go. We can only take it a step at a time." He smiled, the first true smile I've seen since he found out he became Valedictorian. I took his hand, letting him pull me up, and hugged him tightly.

"Thank you." I whispered.

She was dancing in the air again, Fang noticed as Max drifted far ahead from the flock. "She's still happy… right?" Angel asked, her brows furrowed as she attempted to listen to Max's thoughts.

"She loves you, all of you, she's just trying to shake the effects of the School." Fang told Angel quietly, patting her head before pushing his wings harder to catch up with Max. a minute later he caught her, grabbing her forearms and making the two just float in mid air. "I know you're trying to get better but right now, it looks like you're going to leave us, will you hang back a bit."

"Sorry." Max apologized, her voice was sincere but her expression was blank. "I'm just knocking on wood right now."

"What about?" Fang asked. Max's gaze shifted to the flock that had just arrived beside Fang.

"Iggy, you're in charge, we'll catch up." Max smiled, snapping her wings shut, dragging Fang down with her.

"What are you doing? Do you have any idea how you looked then?" Fang growled over the whistling wind. Max laughed, screaming at the weightless plunge as if she were riding a roller coaster and not plummeting towards the ground. She snapped her wings open a few hundred feet from the ground, tugging Fang back up with her. She continued laughing but it quickly ebbed away.

"If I was going to tell you, it couldn't be in front of them, dummy." Max's blank face had returned. "I'm already breaking the rules but this is something they don't need or want to know. Besides, I know how I looked then. I smiled a happy smile but it didn't reach my eyes. In fact it looked like I was about to cry. I know, Fang. I can have fun but there's only a certain amount of happiness I can put forth till I just lose it."

"And what about the thing you can't tell others?" The two gently glided down to a clearing beside a small lake.

"The Voice hasn't greeted me in a while, I'm a little worried." Max's lips curled into an unsure smile as she replied to the question with a laugh.

"I'm sure that's the least of your worries, what's the real deal?"

"You don't want to know." Max's face was grim. She looked out towards the lake, a wistful look in her eye.

"I do."

"Promise you won't flip?" And at once Fang saw Max as her insecure 14-year-old self. She was trying to find the right words, she felt like it was something she shouldn't say, and yet it was entirely necessary to say. He saw her as the girl he remembered who was afraid of being hated because she thought the whole world whether or not she did the right thing. Max had wrapped an arm around herself, her brows furrowed with a pain she obviously let fester over her residency at the School.

"You're the one more likely to flip, just tell me." Fang replied, his face serious. He could take it, right? He watched as Max seemed to transform from her 14 year old self and to the twenty year old woman in front of him; her serious and grave face worried him, he wondered if it meant they would be separated again but somehow, he didn't know how, it was much more serious than that.

"I have a tracking chip in my arm."

"You know, usually when people say something serious like that it's always: 'I'm pregnant' or 'I have 6 months to live' or 'I'm being shipped off to war' not that." Iggy whispered to Angel, as Gassy and Nudge waited up above. The two had been observing Fang and Max, after all, Max had been acting so strange since she came back. Satisfied with Max's confession Angel nodded before the two ducked from the bushes and ran a mile or so before taking off into the sky.

Fang stumbled back at the force of the words. "It won't be reactivated until they notice I'm gone, which could be a week from now or two months, maybe even three. I am technically taking a two month vacation… but that's how they found us so fast, that's how they'll always find us."

"How?"

"I took an X-Ray while at the School, it's deeply embedded with my muscles and it's far to close to a nerve. It must've been put in when I was a child but I don't remember, there are too many false memories in my head. But anyway, it's the type they use for expensive pets and I guess that's what I really was to the School, a big expensive prize worthy pet." All the while a hurt smile found its way to Max's lips.

"To the White Coats that is what we are. They don't see us as living creatures with minds. Just some paycheck." Max glared at Fang's words.

"I'm a White Coat too, Fang!"

"But you were an experiment first!" Fang argued. "You won't have bothered to know them had you never found what you were! You've only acknowledged more because you are an experiment first and a White Coat second."

"Ugh! I don't want to fight, I just wanted to tell you this and how I somehow need to get it removed. I don't want for you guys to be on the run anymore, I don't want someone to know where I am every split second of the day-"

"Then lets go to Disney World, while you still have your freedom of no one knowing where you are." Fang interrupted. Max ran a hair through her hair, as if contemplating his words. "You can have fun, you can get better, and you can go anywhere you want and the flock'll have to play Marco polo just to find you. We'll camp out on Tom Sawyer's island or in Tarzan's tree house. We'll sneak into the castle and explore the place till dawn. You can do whatever you want. Could you, for once, not worry about the future and just let me take you along? You don't have to be the leader again just yet."

"Fine." Max submitted, it would be nice once in a while to be lead along just like when Fang drove her everywhere.

"I have never… had a crush on the Gasman." Max said as the flock huddled around a campfire, playing a game Max had just explained to them. Instead of putting down a finger for every instance that was true the flock was to take an M&M. Nudge cursed before taking an M&M for herself. "What'dja know, Nudge used to have a crush on Gazzy." Max grinned, watching the Gasman and Nudge turn bright red.

"Ok, I have never drunk through a straw." Iggy started, sitting to the left of Max. "No, the science tubes don't count."

"Liar, it does too count, if they call it a straw, it's a straw." Max grabbed an M&M along with Fang.

"Whatever." Iggy rolled his sightless eyes.

"I have never… um…driven any vehicle ever." Nudge said thoughtfully. Max watched as Iggy grabbed a piece of candy along with Fang.

"What did you drive, Iggy?" Max asked, bewildered.

"Well, I was bored one day and decided to jump into the White Coat's golf cart and see where it got me." Iggy grinned, playing off his pun.

"You weren't driving, that was crash course 101." Fang commented and the flock laughed.

"Alright! My turn!" The Gasman grinned. "I have never had to carry Total while flying!" The flock glanced at the furry mess at the edge of camp before turning back to the game. The flock grumbled as each member picked up a candy except for Max.

"I haven't been around you guys long enough to care that mess around." Max shrugged.

"I have never not always had blonde hair." Angel said with a smile, petting Celeste.

"What? Do these double negatives even make sense?" Iggy asked, attempting to make sense of Angel, as he took a candy anyway.

"I have never had to work as a White Coat." Fang said causing Max to glare at him and the flock to fall silent. He gave her a miniscule sly smile and she grumbled taking an M&M for herself.

"I have never…" Max began trailed off, feeling the beginnings of a brain attack coming. She looked at Fang with fear. "Forgot to knock on wood." Fang's eyes widened dramatically, remembering the previous conversation by the lake.

The pain engulfed Max, it was as if Erasers were playing soccer with her head, or people were setting her whole body ablaze. Max grimaced as she curled into herself, she had forgotten what a brain attack felt like. I have never, the Voice joined in coolly, met someone so unwilling to save the world as you.

Dun Dun Dun!!!!! Anyway, so that's it for a bit, I'm on spring break now so I had time to write this. Um... Yeah! Thanks for having patience with me!

CHALLENGE TIME! Boy you haven't heard from this in a while. Who is you favorite Disney Channel Star? I know, stupid question, most people hate the Disney Channel but (shrugs) some of them aren't so bad and most of them come from my state. Heck yes! I mean, I don't like what Disney Channel is doing to ruin Walt Disney's name but, you know, some of the actors are actually nice.

Adieu
Nightwing