A/N Wow, I wasn't actually intending for this talk to be so long, then it turned out that Max and Fang had a lot to say. Sorry for the repost of this one, but when I finished it last night I was uber-tired, and re-reading it this morning I thought that there were a few little tweaks I could put in to make it better.

Also, someone left a guest review that said 'HOW CAN YOU?' I'm not sure if they meant it as a compliment or were shocked by something I'd done in a 'how could you do that?' kinda way, so if that person is reading this then help me understand you! :P

Fang glanced around as I moved towards the space where he stood in the unlit living room, a small crease appearing between his eyebrows when he saw how soaked I was.

'You were out in this?' he asked, jerking his head towards the window. 'You must be freezing.'

'I'm fine,' I said, rolling my eyes when he pulled his jacket off anyway and dropped it around my shoulders.

'What were you doing outside?'

I stared out of the window, watching as the rain drummed down onto the decking outside; a light mist, formed by the spray of droplets bouncing back when they hit the wood, blanketed the ground.

'Dylan's gone,' I said, not watching Fang for a reaction.

'Gone?'

My gaze skated across the garden and I shivered slightly as an icy drop of water from my wet hair slid down my back. I could feel Fang's eyes on me.

'He said it was time for him to leave. Said he was gonna go around the different Schools, maybe get together a group of his own.'

'Hm. Best of luck to him.'

That got me. I snorted and turned to look at him, aiming for derisive but probably just about managing amused sarcasm.

'Are you kidding me? "Best of luck to him"? Please. Whilst he was here you treated him like he was the devil incarnate, and now that he's gone suddenly he was a decent guy and you're wishing him the best of luck?'

Fang looked away from me, frowning.

'I didn't think he was the devil incarnate.' I made a small sound of scepticism and he shot a quick scowl in my direction before sighing and tilting his head backwards. 'I just thought,' he said slowly, 'that you and he-'

'Well…' I cut across him, the smile fading from my face. 'We weren't.'

We both stared at each other for a second before turning back to face the window, and a pause stretched out between us where the only thing I could hear was the hammering of the rain on the roof. It felt as though with every moment that went by he got further away from me, we grew more and more in danger of disregarding everything as being unfixable, too awkward and uncomfortable to salvage. My stomach clenched at the thought of it, and my throat was aching with all the things I'd bottled up since he'd gone; not just the pain of him leaving, but all the smaller things, the day-to-day upsets and frustrations that I usually would've told him about. When he left it was as if I had to take all the parts of me that he normally carried, the parts of me that I suddenly didn't have a place for anymore, and sweep them aside – it still felt as though I was keeping so much of me on hold, waiting to see if I'd be able to dust it off and bring it back out again.

We still weren't saying anything.

Don't let this happen, Max. Don't let the silence do the talking for you.

'So do you wanna explain that little stunt you pulled back in the holding cell? "That's me"?' I crossed my arms and turned my whole body around to face him, raising an accusing eyebrow. 'I mean, what the heck were you thinking? How much of a moron do you have to be, Fang?'

He made a low growl of frustration in the back of his throat, tugging at his hair as he pushed a hand through it roughly.

'We talked on the mountain the night before, and I realised that I wasn't wha-... I couldn't…' He grimaced as he tried to find the words to explain his actions. 'Dylan was good for you. Seemed like it, anyway. When that whitecoat came for him-…'

I watched him as he went on, thinking about what he was saying. In a way, Dylan had been good for me; at different points in my life, I'd needed different things to help me get through. When Fang had left, Dylan's raw honesty had been a comfort, no matter how foreign it had felt. I had been vulnerable and completely unable to deal with any puzzles or complications, and his constant openness and unwavering loyalty had fit the bill. The Fang I'd known before had been the quiet strength and support that I'd needed when I was ten, twelve, fourteen; escaping from the School, taking care of the flock after Jeb left, getting to grips with my destiny of saving the world. But he was a different person now – looking at him, I could see the changes. He'd made mistakes, and dealt with the consequences, and sworn never to make the same ones again. He seemed older. And I felt older, too. I'd learned a lot, even in the past few days alone, and I was calmer, like I understood things better, like I understood myself better. For the first time, I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

I was a new Max.

And maybe, just maybe, the thing that I needed right now, at this point in my life right here, was the new Fang.

'-and I guess I thought… You're laughing,' he stated, his eyes narrowing just slightly at the corners.

'I am,' I agreed.

'Why? What did I sa-?'

I cut him off with a hand on his shoulder, laughing again.

'Fang. I never in a million years thought that I'd ever have to say this to you, of all people, but seriously, just…' I shook my head, leaning forwards. 'Just stop talking.'

I think I must've pretty much breathed that last word right into his mouth, because a split-second later I was kissing him.

He stood utterly still for a moment and I felt a stab of fear shoot through me, but then his head tilted and he was kissing me back, his jacket falling from my shoulders as his hands came up to hold me around the waist.

And that was it; we were ourselves again. The pieces that I'd fallen to when he left came flying back together, and it all felt so, so unbelievably right. Everything about him was familiar – his mouth, the ridges of his face, the curve of his shoulders as the hand that had been fisted in his shirt moved up to join my other one around his neck. Even as I was thinking all that, though, I was also thinking that it felt like I was kissing him for the first time; it brought the same crazy mix of elation and stomach-twisting nervousness.

Then again, thinking back to the actual first time in the cave (I'm fairly certain that the time I kissed him on the beach isn't really valid), this was definitely better – there weren't any "freaking out and throwing oneself off into space" shenanigans. This time I was completely sure about what I was doing.

I'm not sure how long we stood there kissing for, but after a time everything slowed down, becoming gentler, almost probing as we rediscovered each other. Fang's hands skimmed over me, sliding up my back and over my shoulders, grazing against my collarbone as they continued up to brush the hair back from my face before moving back down to my waist again, pulling me even closer against him. It was as if I could feel my heartbeat pounding through my whole body, right to the tips of my fingers as they traced along the side of his face.

Eventually we broke apart but kept close, foreheads resting against each other and noses still touching. For a few moments I was content just to stay like that, breathing in his air, but before long the incredible happiness I was feeling started bubbling up; I pulled back a little more so that I could look up at him with what was no doubt an embarrassingly dorky grin on my face.

'How did we get here?' I asked, and Fang gave me a look that was a mixture of confusion and amusement. His dark eyes shone with a kind of energy in the darkness.

'Well, I was upstairs and then I came downstairs, and…' He trailed off and one side of his mouth quirked up in a half-smile as I rolled my eyes witheringly.

'No, I mean how did we get here, to this point?' I said, stepping away and turning so that my back was to him as I paced across the room. I felt like I was buzzing, drunk off, like, euphoria or something stupid like that. 'Think about it; think about everything that's happened, all the insane things that have been going on our whole lives. There were so many factors that came into it and fit together, and the slightest change in any one of them could've sent everything in a totally different direction.'

Fang's hands came around my waist from behind.

'Feeling philosophical, by any chance?'

I spun in his arms to face him.

'Seriously, though; what were the chances of it all ending the way that it has?'

I didn't even realise we were backing up until the backs of my legs hit the couch and I lost my balance, Fang letting go of me so that I fell back onto the cushions with a slight bounce. He scrutinised me for a second, looking thoughtful, then moved forwards to sit down too.

'You think this is the end?' he said evenly, eyes still on me.

I didn't reply, looking back at him questioningly, not sure where he was headed. He reached out and laid a hand over mine, his fingers absently drawing slow patterns on my skin as he carried on speaking:

'I have no intention of letting this be the end, Max. I plan to live a long life with you and anyone else in the group who wants to stick around.'

A smile spread across my face as he spoke, and I shook my head in mild amazement.

'You are the corniest person on the entire planet.'

He smirked in a show of feigned cockiness.

'You love me for it, though.'

'Yeah, I do.'

We both felt the weight of the words as soon as they left my mouth; they hit me like a punch in the gut.

The issue being that we'd never actually said… that to one another before.

Okay, I mean, I guess if we're being picky about details then we had, but every time it happened it always seemed to be accompanied by incredibly unfortunate circumstances: I'd said it whilst under the influence of Valium, then again when Fang was lying technically dead on a table in Dr G-H's house; Fang had written it in the letter he'd left behind when he went away; both of us had said it and implied it and danced one hundred different ways around it during those awful, heart-rending talks we'd had when he came back. It kind of felt like none of those times really counted. They were too clogged up with whatever else was going on, too painful or desperate or downright humiliating.

'I love you.' It was said before I'd had a chance to think about it, and immediately I felt mortified that I'd just gone and blurted out something so weighty. Feeling my cheeks heating up, I cleared my throat loudly in discomfort and tried to look anywhere but at Fang, but his hand came up to gently turn my face back towards him. Then he bent his head and brought his lips to mine in a slow, deep kiss that I swear to God I felt all the way down to my toes; when he pulled away again, it took a second or two for me to bring the logistics of breathing back to mind.

'If you ever doubted how much I love you then you aren't nearly as smart as I give you credit for,' he said, his eyes lasering into me.

Jeez, what was I meant to say to that? Everybody knows that gushy talks are not my forte. I felt as though I'd been doing well so far – nothing had been broken and no one had been hurt – but I think I deserved some leeway on this one; I mean, we'd just gone from barely knowing what to say to each other to "I love you" in about five minutes.

Well, alright, not five minutes, that was a total exaggeration, but it had all escalated pretty quickly. That's the thing to take away from this.

So I really didn't have a clue as to how to respond. Unfortunately, my instinctive reaction to not knowing what to say is to cut to my good ol' dependable fallbacks: derision and sarcasm.

'When have you ever given me credit for being smart?'

I'm sure it would've sounded a lot more scathing if my voice hadn't come out all weirdly-pitched. Fang snorted, and I couldn't help laughing along with him as he cuffed me lightly on the shoulder and then wrapped an arm around my waist, tugging me over so that I ended up leaning back against him.

'I'll get you wet,' I warned, pulling against him and waving a hand to indicate my still-damp clothes.

'Bit late for that.' Fang gestured to the dark patch on his shirt from where I'd been pressed up against him before. I shook my head despairingly and conceded.

Neither of us spoke for a while as we settled into our position, and I rested a hand on the arm lying across my middle.

'Aren't you going to ask, then?' I said eventually. We both knew what I meant; I could tell that there was still a part of him that didn't understand why I'd decided to let him in again.

I felt his chest rise and fall beneath me as he sighed.

'I'm sure I will sooner or later. Not right now, though.'

We sat and talked for the next few hours, swapping stories about things that had happened whilst the two groups were still separate, revisiting memories; I squeezed Fang's hand as he told me about the time Maya had spent with his group before she died, his voice tight, and then a little while later he let out a real, proper laugh when I tried to tell him I'd learned how to cook.

'I have!' I blustered indignantly. 'I'm going to have to prove it sometime.'

'Do you have to?' he responded, still chuckling. 'I'd just rather go without being poisoned if it can be helped.'

So of course I had to elbow him in the ribs for that one.

A couple of hours in, when he did get around to asking what had brought about my decision to give things another go, I told him everything I'd been thinking about him and me and us over the last couple of weeks; how bizarre and painful it had felt to have him around again, how much I'd wanted to just give in at multiple times during the journey to the School, how devastating it had been when I thought he was dead, and how incredible it had been to find out that he was still alive. I told him my thoughts about how both of us had changed and recounted my conversations with Dylan. I spilled everything, and it took a while to get through it all, but by the end I felt more certain than ever that I'd made the right choice; Fang had been a part of me since we were kids in the School, and now he was so firmly ingrained into everything I was that I could tell he was something I would never be able to let go of.

He didn't say anything after I finished speaking, and when I twisted my head so that I could look up at him, I was blind-sided by one of his heart-stopping smiles.

'You've got to stop doing that,' I muttered, tearing my eyes away from him as I forced myself to turn back around.

'Doing what?' he asked teasingly, his voice saying that he knew exactly what I was talking about. He prodded my arm when I didn't reply. 'Doing what, Max?'

'You're such an ass.'

I stared resolutely ahead, feeling a flush heat my face again, but Fang shifted slightly so that I could still see him out of the corner of my eye, and then before I knew it he'd swung me around so that we ended up practically nose-to-nose.

'What's wrong?' he asked, his breath floating over my face as he spoke. 'Is it too distracting?'

I hoped he couldn't feel how hard my heart was thumping. This side of Fang was one that didn't come out all that often; on the one hand it meant that he was really happy, which was a good thing, but on the other it meant that his ability to drive me up the wall increased by about tenfold, which was definitely not a good thing.

Fight fire with fire.

I leaned in even closer, pushing right up towards him, and when I spoke it was low and deliberate:

'Don't flatter yourself.'

Quickly turning back around, I folded my arms and fixed my stare on the wall ahead of me. Fang chuckled and kissed the top of my head, and I couldn't stop a small smile from creeping its way onto my face.

We were well into the early hours of the morning now; the rain had stopped some time ago, and the sky was just barely beginning to lose some of its blackness. A few early-rising birds twittered tentatively outside the window, and suddenly my eyelids felt incredibly heavy. We stayed there, murmuring a few words at sleepy intervals, but before long I was out for the count, still leaning against Fang with his arms around me.

It was all disgustingly cute, really.

A/N I enjoy exploring the more playful aspects of Fang's personality. :P I always kinda wanted to see a few more of their moments as a normal couple rather than as a bird-kid couple, so forgive me if I played with that too much here! I've gotta say, I've been waiting for this chapter ('cause I'm a bit of a hopeless romantic and never in a million years intended for the two of them NOT to get back together). I know I made y'all wait for it, but seriously, I've had parts of this written since, like, chapter 8. :P

Right, I reckon there's one more chapter left of this story. Maybe two. Probably one.

Review, review, review! :D