It was dark when Fang got back to where his gang had set up camp. His shoulders were aching after days of almost constant fighting and flying, but he was past caring. As he touched down, his eyes automatically darted around the camp, making a rapid analysis of the area; part of him wanted to believe that maybe they'd thrown the newly-instated Erasers off their backs for a while, but the more realistic side of him said it would be stupid to drop his guard.

Kate and Holden were sitting by the small fire that illuminated the campsite, talking quietly as Star lay spread out in the flickering orange light, for once neither eating like there'd be no tomorrow (which, Fang considered, seemed to be becoming more and more of a likelihood) nor about to rip Ratchet's head off. The guy in question sat a little way off, against a tree at the edge of the small clearing; his hands beat out the drum part to a song Fang couldn't hear. Walking over to where he was sitting, Fang regarded him for a moment, one eyebrow slightly raised.

'Someone over the way's having a party. Playing some decent tunes,' Ratchet explained, without looking up. Through the trees, past the limits of the woods, the lights of a small town could be seen coming from just over the brow of a hill; by the looks of things it was a good mile away at least. Fang looked back down at Ratchet, unable to help being impressed.

'Not bad,' he said in a low voice. Ratchet lifted his head and grinned, his hands stilling.

'Hey, it's what I do.'

Over by the fire, Star sat up and called over to them.

'So you gonna let us know how the area check went or what, Feathers?' Everyone turned to look in his direction, and Fang's jaw clenched almost imperceptibly as he remembered Max walking away from him.

'Nothing out of the ordinary,' he said tightly, walking towards the campfire, feeling their eyes on him as he went. Star gave a slight nod and made a move towards the backpacks of food which sat at the edge of the campsite, and for a moment it seemed like the conversation was over. Then a voice rang out from behind him.

'Well, that's a lie.' Fang groaned inwardly as he turned to see Ratchet getting to his feet, a smirk on his face. 'I don't think you're telling us the whole story.'

'What do you mean?' Kate asked.

'Ah, Katie, Katie, Katie,' Ratchet sang, sauntering over to where she was sitting and leaning himself against the top of her head. 'Let me explain the habits of the lesser-spotted Fang. You see, Mr Tall, Dark, and Silent here has certain patterns to how he works. Whenever he leaves the camp, he goes off and does whatever it is he has to do, then as he's on his way back he'll loop around to throw off any tails. Which means that every time he comes back to camp, he enters from the opposite side to the one he left from. But here's the kicker.' He ruffled Kate's hair and straightened up, his eyes fixing on Fang behind his sunglasses. 'This time, he came back the same way he'd left. So either he just decided that the habits of a lifetime were no longer necessary – unlikely – or he had something on the brain that distracted him enough for it to slip his mind. If you ask me, his little field trip was very out of the ordinary indeed.'

Every eye in the campsite turned towards Fang, who glared at Ratchet as he shrugged, grinning like a shark, and said,

'Hey man, when you're packing super sensory everything, you tend to notice stuff.' He flopped onto the ground next to the fire and winked at Star, who scowled and rolled her eyes, turning to look in Fang's direction.

'So, as repulsive as it is to say, can we take it that Ratchet's correct given how you're looking at him as if he just peed all over you laptop?'

Holden snorted. Fang took a slow, deep breath, trying to rearrange his face into something as impassive as possible; it felt harder to manage than usual tonight.

'I was just thinking about our next move. Guess I forgot,' he said, lowering himself onto the ground and picking up a stick to poke at the fire. Star glanced at Kate, her eyebrows raised, and Fang knew she hadn't been convinced.

'So what took you so long, then? Normally recon only keeps you for an hour or so.' His hand tightened around the stick.

'Checked out the towns around us, too. Wanted to make sure there was nothing to worry about after the attacks we've been getting.' At the edge of his vision, Fang saw Ratchet shake his head, calling him out. No one said anything for a few seconds, and then Kate looked up at him from her place across the campfire.

'You went to see her, didn't you? Max.' She said the name as if it were one of Gazzy and Iggy's bombs, as if she were worried that handling it wrongly could cause it to explode in her face. The camp fell dead still. Suddenly everything seemed super-intense; the roughness of the stick in Fang's hand, the ground beneath him, the glare from the fire. The sound of his heart beating seemed to echo through him, wisps of smoke from the burning wood felt like they were sticking in his throat, and Fang wondered briefly if this was what life was like for Ratchet – everything more than it should be. Kate's voice cut into his head as she continued talking, pulling him back to reality.

'It would be understandable if you did, you know. What with Maya and everything…' She trailed off, looking pained, then took a deep breath and carried on. 'It must've been hard for you, watching that. And it must've dragged up a lot of thoughts about Max. So it would make sense for you to want to see her now.'

Fang just about managed to stop himself from running a hand through his hair – it was becoming a bit of a nervous habit and irritated the hell out of him – and although his face didn't change, he let a breath out sharply through his nose.

'They're staying in a house a couple of hours away from here. I went by to let them know what had happened. We talked.'

'That how you got that new bruise on your jaw? Talking?' Ratchet retorted, and, not for the first time, Fang considered that having someone in the gang who noticed everything wasn't necessarily helpful all the time.

'We fought. Before we talked. That was it.'

'Girl got a couple of good hits in, by the looks of it. What'd you talk about?' At Ratchet's words, Holden winced.

'I don't think he wants to tell us.' Before anyone could respond, Fang pulled himself off the ground, walked away from the fire, and launched himself up into the nearest tree. Settling himself into the nook between two branches, he threw an arm across his closed eyes. Beneath him he could hear the others talking quietly.

'Someone's talkative today.' Ratchet. Then a slapping sound quickly followed by an indignant yelp.

'Shut it, nimrod. Clearly something went down. Jeez, don't be an insensitive ass your whole life, okay?' Star.

'Insensitive? I'm as sensitive as they come, baby.'

Kate's voice cut in:

'I think he just needs a bit of space. And he can probably hear everything we're saying just now.'

Silence.

When the whispers started up again, Fang tuned them out. He thought back over his visit to the flock. It wasn't as if he'd been expecting anything other than what had happened; the kick to the head might have been unanticipated, but it was Max. And Max was unpredictable. Especially now. Fang's eyes screwed up beneath the crook of his arm. There had been a time, not all that long ago, when he could read her so well. There had been this crazy kind of communication between them which had sometimes been so clear that it made Fang wonder if Angel really was the only one who could read minds in the flock. And now, because of him, it was gone.

But was it, really? Because for a moment, when they'd been left alone and actually managed to have a conversation that meant something, everything about her seemed so easy to understand; the way she touched her face when she got anxious, the expression she put on when he knew she was trying to hide something, the clenching of her jaw as she stared at him and tried to figure out what to say next. Was it seriously possible for someone to seem so recognisable and so strange at the same time?

Not that it mattered. He'd screwed up – again – and now it didn't make any difference whether he could still read her or not. The way she'd walked out, without saying anything… Fang wouldn't have expected it to end well, not for a second, but that didn't make watching her leave any less gut-wrenching. It didn't make it any less painful. Guess we all get what's coming to us.

And losing Maya was another thing to add to the list of awful stuff that had been going on. He never would have thought that he'd become so close to the person who had originally been created to help terminate the flock, but over time Fang had come to know her as herself, rather than as Max, and she'd turned into a real friend. Almost without him realising. So when she fell, there was a part of him that was stunned by how much it hurt. Not to mention the guilt; not only did he fail to save her, but one of her biggest insecurities was grounded in the fact that everyone expected her to be just like her original template. She'd put so much time and energy into becoming her own person, and then at the moment of her death all that Fang could do was see her as Max. Some friend he was.

He'd been lying there for a good two hours and the camp below him had fallen still when he felt a buzzing his pocket. Pulling his cell phone out, he squinted against the sudden light of the screen. Glancing down, he saw the others sprawled out in various positions across the campsite, all asleep except for Holden, who was sitting with his back against a tree taking watch. A slight frown appeared on Fang's face as he looked back at the phone, his mind racing trying to figure out who could be calling. He sat up on the branch as he answered.

'Hell-'

'If you want to bring your little gang along with you then you're gonna have to call John Abate. Ask him to get stuff put in the other bedrooms.' His heart quickened and he nearly fell out of the tree.

'Max?' She gave a short, tense-sounding huff in response, and he felt a slight twitching at the corners of his mouth in spite of everything; definitely Max. 'So… You're saying it's okay for us to come? For… For good?'

'I guess I am.' Her voice was strained, and Fang could tell that she was nowhere near certain of her decision. 'Not now. Midday tomorrow.'

'Okay,' he replied. 'Max, are you su-'

'Don't push it, Fang.' The line went dead and Fang stared at the phone, trying to work out what had just happened. Midday tomorrow. He felt a sudden lurch of nervousness and held his breath for a moment, not entirely unconvinced that he might be about to throw up. The churning in his stomach lessened by a fraction, and he leaned back against the trunk of his tree. Inhaling sharply, he gave his head one good, hard hit against the rough bark. It hurt; he wasn't dreaming, then. It wasn't until then that he allowed himself to smile. Just briefly, just to get it out. Things weren't fixed, not by a long way; there was still a hell of a lot that needed to be done, but they were a damn lot closer to being on their way than they had been five minutes ago.

The next morning, Fang dropped down from the tree and walked towards the centre of the campsite, where the ashes from last night's fire were being scattered by the light wind. He kicked Ratchet – who had the dangerous habit of falling asleep during his watch - awake as he passed, and his startled cry woke the others, all of whom instantly jumped to their feet looking ready to fight.

'Wa's gon' on?' Ratchet muttered as he picked himself up off the ground. Fang turned to face them, feeling jittery, wired with nervous energy.

'Pack up, guys,' he said. 'We're relocating.'