I woke up to the sound of chirping birds. Warm sunlight came from the window of the van. Wait the van… shit! I sat up quickly and looked around. I'd fallen asleep in the van. Stupid, stupid. I thought to myself. I realized just then that I had fallen asleep leaning on Fang. I remembered how it felt when I fell asleep with Dylan by my side.

I heard voices coming from outside. But before I even had a chance to react the car door slid open and I saw Holden and Ratchet standing there with identical smirks on their faces. Great. Another thing for Ratchet to tease me about.

"Hey love birds." Ratchet laughed. "Get it love birds. Because you know you have.., wings. Forget it." He turned around and called, "Guys! I found them!" Everyone all came crowding around the door. Dylan looked straight at me.

Then he looked away quickly and frowned. Just great. Now he's going all lovesick puppy on me again.

I used the seats and pulled myself out of the car.

"Ow." I winced and frowned down at my torso where the stitches were. They hurt more than they did yesterday. Damn erasers.

"What's wrong?" Iggy asked.

"Nothing."

"So what's the plan?" Gazzy asked.

"Let's all drive to the gen 77 school it can't take more than a day to get there." I decided. I was really hoping that they wouldn't ask why I wanted to drive there instead of fly.

"Why are we driving?" Of course.

I gritted my teeth. I hated feeling weak. "I don't think I'm up to flying today." I said quickly. I grabbed my back pack from Nudge who was trying to balance that and Carter. No one said anything. Good choice.

"How is he?" I gestured to Carter.

"Fever's almost gone. But he didn't get much sleep last night." Star said. She smiled at him. I was so not used to seeing this side of her.

I nodded. "Shot gun!" I called.

There were groans of protest but in the end Ratchet was driving again because he had the most experience.

Ratchet pulled up a screen so that he wouldn't have to see anyone in the back distract him, but of course he could still hear them. I ignored him. Until…

"So you and Fangy huh?" he smiled.

"No." I sighed. And looked out the window at all the other cars on the highway.

"Oh come on! You can't possibly expect me to believe that! Not after how I found you two this morning."

"We fell asleep by accident!" I said in protest. I was glad that the others couldn't hear us from behind the screen.

"You should forgive him."

"Why should I?" I asked.

"Because he still loves you." He spoke more quietly now, "he only left you because he thought it was the best thing, and he was scared."

"Scared?" I questioned.

"You've left him because you were scared." He pointed out.

"When!"

"Those couple times you kissed him. I read about it on the blog not long ago. Before I met him."

"Maybe I ran away but I didn't say that I was going to leave for twenty years!" I yelled.

"He was only gone for a week before he came back." Ratchet said.

"Well that was a horrible week for me. You don't even want to know how bad that was. I went nuts!" I said and remembered throwing out the ring and then going through the trash to find it.

I looked down and twisted the ring that was still on my finger. Despite everything it was still in good shape.

"Why do you wear that?" he studied the ring for a second before looking back at the road.

"Fang gave it to me as a birthday present."

"That doesn't explain why you still wear it."

"I don't know why I wear it anymore." I sighed and glanced back out the window. Something was still bugging me about Ratchet.

"Why do you tease me?" I finally asked him. He had constantly cracked jokes about me and Dylan for days now,

"It's what I do." Was his reply.

"Well stop! It's causing me a lot of stress."

"I can't help it sometimes!" he smirked.

"Seriously it puts everyone on edge. You should have seen the reaction when the Doctor mentioned it."

"Did all hell break loose?" he asked.

"The exact opposite. We all just stood there and stared. Dylan gut all hopeful and stuff so it was really weird."

There was a knock on the screen. I turned around and rolled it down.

"Max, two things. One Carter wants you, and two we are starving!" Nudge said. She handed Carter over to me.

"Hey cutie!" I crooned. He giggled and snuggled closer to me.

"Nudge I'll pull over soon and find a place to eat." Ratchet told her while looking through the rear view mirror.

"Kay." She rolled the screen back up and through it I saw her sit back and begin playing cards again.

"I wasn't kidding before you know." Ratchet smirked at me again, "you really do look natural holding him like that."

"Didn't you just agree to stop teasing me!"

"I'm telling the truth and I didn't say I would stop. Never agreed to that." He said.

I thought about what he said, well I never said anything about teasing him.

"What about you and Star?" I asked.

"What about us?" His face turned red in embarrassment, he shifted uncomfortably in his sit.

"You know what I mean!"

"Seriously Max I don't like her like that." He defended.

"I'll drop it if you drop the whole laying eggs thing."

"Deal."

The rest of the ride was silent and eventually we came to stop in a huge parking lot.

"Where are we?" I asked.

He gave me an evil grin. "The mall."