AN: I know I tend to do this a lot in this story, but I'm jumping forward a few years. Otherwise I would be stuck in mourning Ella forever and what kind of a story would that be? lol. It shouldn't be too confusing but let me know if it is and I'll explain it better over PM. Thanks for the review I know you'll leave :)

Chapter Eighteen

Nick's POV

It had been two years since I was last home (or at the place that I had decided was my home, since I had never been actually invited to live there) and I was anxious to get back and see everyone. It took me a lot longer to track down the remaining School facilities, but I did it.

And I brought back a few of the surviving experiments too. Most had decided to see what life was like on their own, but a few of them that had heard about The Maximum Ride wanted to meet her and share their experiences with the "Savior of the Experiments" as they call her.

It started getting old about two months ago when our rag-tag group started heading back to Forks. I'm not ungrateful or hurt that they didn't see me actually physically rescuing them as their hero, I'm just saying that they could quit with all the Maxapaloza.

I turned to Robin on my right and secretly monitored her wing patterns. Though she had never been let out of her cage at the Institute in Long Island where I found her, she knew how to fly almost instantly. She was a quick learner, that was for sure. From what I gathered from her stories and the few memories that included a reference to time, she was seventeen.

Her older brother, Riley, was not much younger than me but he was not all there in the head so he was treated like her younger brother instead. Roughly about twenty-four, Riley had a hard life.

He was created right after Fang and I were conceived as a sort of backup Flock member. When his DNA didn't quite hold up, They called for a termination. His mother, the scientist in charge, only held off because she thought he could be a useful chew toy for the Erasers. And he was.

That's why he's even more messed up now than most of us, but none of us had the heart to leave him behind undefended; especially Robin. The girl was young but she understood the responsibility she was signing up for.

"He's family." She had said sternly when I had asked why not put him out of his misery. "Family might not matter to anyone else, but to me it does. Riley comes with us or I leave."

I couldn't really argue with her logic; I knew if things had been different and Fang had known I was alive all those years ago when Jeb left with the Flock, he would have demanded I be brought along too.

Below the three of us were our non-Avian companions. Though it meant we had to take more breaks, they decided to run (or whatever their animal DNA allowed them to do) instead of be carried by us. It takes guts to do that is all I'm saying.

Genevieve, who we call Jenny, is part penguin. Though she's small, she manages to keep up with us most of the time. When she lags behind, one of us usually picked her up though because she really was just a kid.

I guess her age to be about nine, but she talks older so I can't be quite sure. None of the others had ever seen a surviving penguin/human cross so they don't know either. The Institute in Florida where she was from had no records on site and I had run out of time so I guess it will always be a mystery.

Running beside her waddle was Toni. Short for Antonia, Toni was part tiger. Ironic, I know, but I didn't have the heart to tell her about the other Tiger named Tony. She would find out soon enough if she stuck around the Cullens long enough.

She was from the Virginia Institute along with about thirty other experiments. It was the largest rescue I did, but only Toni decided to stay with us. Her nineteen year old twin, Anthony, decided to split at the Arizona border and Toni was crushed. She didn't once look back though, and I wonder if she regrets it.

Leo, keeping pace next to Toni, was part snow leopard. He was from the Tennessee Institute but he had been created in the one not far from Death Valley. He was the oldest experiment I had ever met (other than that creepy turtle lady I've heard about that was like a hundred). No, Leo was a good ten years older than me, almost thirty-five, and he had grey (well actually white-ish) hair to prove it.

He had been programed to be a mate for one of the other experiments but she had died giving birth to their son. The boy survived and was actually with us. He was running beside his father, making the final member of our rag tag team.

Raymond was part snow leopard and part cheetah as well as being human. He was truely one of a kind. Though Max and the gang had pretty much all had children, Ray was the first successful generation two experiment. (He's also the first living combination of two different breeds of animals; not even Max's kids can say that). He's about fifteen now and can keep up a conversation better than Nudge or her clone. The kid is a cheetah-chatter box!

Anyways, we were nearing Forks border line when I noticed that Jenny was getting tired so I picked up the little penguin girl and held her close to my chest as we continued to fly (and run) through the forest.

I hoped that Alice had seen me coming and knew to have everyone ready, but since we were experiments, it wasn't likely.

I hope not much had changed since I left.

There was someone that I had been dying to see over the past two years and I wasn't going to waste another second worrying about everyone's reactions. I loved her and I was going to tell her. I didn't care if she was younger than me or it might be frowned upon; I knew in my gut that we belonged together.

I didn't care that I was different from "normal" Flock members because I had grafted in lupine DNA as well or that I wasn't fit to raise a family yet or that when I got back, she might not even remember me. All I cared about was her.

Just like Fang knew that Max was his when we were only kids and Nudge knew that Iggy would someday love her back, I knew she belonged with me from the moment I laid eyes on her. Most birds mated for life afterall.

AN: Okay, so that chapter didn't have much dialogue, but I promise the upcoming chapters won't be as much introducing characters as this one was. Bonus points to anyone who can guess who Nick loves :)