"On any other day, I'd be blue eyes crying,
I could tell the world, 'At least I'm trying,
The clouds are breaking,
The sun is shining new for me and you."
--Bon Jovi

"Max!" Nudge shouted as she bounced down the front steps, "Max, Max, Max!"

I laughed, and held out my arms and Nudge flew into them, grabbing onto my sides and squeezing her arms tightly around my waist. She pressed her forehead against my shoulder and I rubbed her back.

About three weeks later, we were having a flock reunion at Nudge's house. Three weeks without seeing each other had really paid a toll us, myself especially. More than once had I fallen asleep exhausted and crying, not that I would admit that to anyone.

Angel and Gazzy had both called me everyday, sometimes excited, sometimes miserable; Angel sometimes even crying. I knew that this was hard on them, probably because it wasn't until someone was gone that you really know how much you need them in the first place.

Nudge and Iggy were a little bit better. They didn't call me everyday; it was the other way around. Nudge, most of the time, was ecstatic about living with her real family. Only once, had she whined about missing the flock.

Iggy on the other hand, was a different story. I knew he really tried not to complain, but he couldn't help it. I also has known that he disliked his parents; back in Arizona, he had never talked about them, and every time while we were waiting for Jeb to come back with the information, he would always complain about how ridiculous it was, and how he would never, ever, go back there.

But when we talked now, it was different. He despised them. He hated their personalities, and their rules, and the way that they acted around him. He didn't talk about it to me all that much, but when he did, he could not hide his resentment. It was actually impressive, considering the only other people he was known to dislike were the psycho scientists at the School.

Aside from Iggy, it did seem that everyone was enjoying staying with their families. Although it could be just a cover up. I had no idea of what was really going on in their lives apart from what they told me on the phone. I could only hope they were being honest.

"Max!" Angel shrieked, and she jumped off the front steps, leaving the door wide open. She wriggled her arms in between Nudge and me, and pressed her head against my side. Nudge stepped back, and Angel took her spot.

"Well," she said, "It certainly took you long enough to get here!" Nudge was smiling though, and I scowled back at her, laughing a little.

"Hey," I said, trying to untangle my fingers from Angel's now crazy hair, "How about, Hey, it's great to see you and you must be exhausted from your four-hours-with-no-breaks flight."

"Max!" With difficulty, because Angel was still attached to me, I turned around to see Gazzy running towards the house, a skateboard in his hands. He stopped short in front of me, smiling, but he didn't come closer. I outstretched the arm that was not holding Angel.

"Don't I get a hug?" I said. Awkwardly, he came closer, and I pulled him in. I could feel his smile as I ruffled his hair.

When we were all done with our hugging, Nudge grabbed my hand and started pulling me in towards their house, "Come on, I want you to see my room."

I didn't want to burst her bubble, saying that I already had seen her room last time I was here, but I nodded, and squeezed Angel's hand as she smiled up at me. I turned back towards Gazzy who was slowly moving backwards towards the street, skateboard in hand, moving in the direction of Nudge's brothers. He stopped when he saw me looking.

"You can stay out here," I said, and he smiled, throwing the skateboard on the ground, and I watched him catch up to Nudge's brothers. Inside, I was secretly glad that he felt like he needed my permission, but I turned away and let Nudge lead me through her house.

"Oh, Max. I didn't know you arrived."

I turned my head to see Sophie in the kitchen doorway, a wooden spoon in her hand. She met me in the hallway, and pulled me in for a hug, which I admit, was way weird. I stood there not really knowing what to do, until she leaned back and smiled at me.

"You look tan. Have you been getting some sun?" she asked. I couldn't tell if she was being polite or if she was really intrigued by the shade of my skin.

"Um, not really," I said with a small smile, as Nudge tugged on my arm.

"I'm going to show Max my room," she said, and started moving down the hallway. Reluctantly, I followed. I smiled again back at Sophie, who watching us, and Angel grabbed my other hand. She smiled up at me when I glanced down.

"Ok, are you ready?" Nudge asked, her hand on the doorknob. I nodded, and the door swung open in this big dramatic flourish. I almost expected rose petals to come flying out as us or something.

I blinked, thinking, or maybe wishing, that I was seeing things. I had seen the room before, when I had come earlier in the summer, with Fang. It was the same room, I was sure, because Nudge's two sisters shared it with her.

Unfortunately, I was not seeing things.

"So, what do you think?" Nudge asked, bouncing lightly on her toes, "My sisters and I painted it ourselves."

"Well," I said, not sure of how to respond, "It definitely suits you."

I stared at it for a minute, before the wall started to give me a headache. She lead us over to her bed in the corner of her room, which was small and unmade. She sat down on it, and dragged me down with her. Angel sat on my other side.

"It's it amazing?" she said, leaning back and touching the wall, "You can almost see it at night, too." I turned away, and Olivia, who was lounging on a bed on the other side of the room, caught my gaze and gave me a sympathetic glance.

"I bet you can," I said.

"Don't you just love the sparkles, too?" Nudge asked and I nodded.

In fact, the sparkles, believe it or not, was the part I could handle. Nudge, being Nudge, had gone ahead and painted her walls, well, pink. But it wasn't even a nice looking pink, like a pastel pink, or rose pink, or a dark sophisticated pink.

No, it was more like, there was no paint left in the home improvement store, so the next best thing was to go to the pharamacy and bring how eighteen bottles of Pepto-Bismol and paint that to the wall. That was what it was like. And to cover up the color, sprinkled across the wall was an insane amount of glitter. It was so intense, I definitely thought I was going to get a headache.

"So, anyway," Nudge said, "I have something I want to tell you."

I looked at her, waiting for her to begin, but she was looking warily at Olivia, who was lounging there on the bed.

"Nudge?" I said.

"Well," she sighed, "I don't really know how you're going to react."

I looked to Angel, but she shrugged, "I don't know what she's going to say. Oh, wait. Now I do."

Nudge scowled at her, but instantly brought her attention back to me, "So. I found a house."

"A house?" I repeated, confused as to where this was going.

"Well, I was out flying one night, and I found a house. And it's really old and cool, but I didn't go inside. But I could tell that no one had lived there for a while. And it was all closed off and everything; there were no roads leading up to it. And it's secluded and all. No one would be able to find us," She was excited, I could tell by the way her eyes lit up.

But I didn't like where she was headed with this. I kept my face blank and my thoughts to myself as she continued.

"So, I was thinking, maybe we could live there."

For a brief moment, I actually considered it. I thought about what would happen if we did move there, all of us together again, living on our own, scavenging for food and not going to school. It was impossible of course. I had made my promises, and we had split up. I had to be on my best behavior. We all did. Of course, there was Plan B, but Fang didn't go for the whole let's-all-be-together-except-for-Max thing, and I doubted he would've changed his mind.

"Don't you like it here?" I asked Nudge.

Before she could answer, Angel burst in, "But Max! It would be like before! And we wouldn't have to listen to anyone, except for you of course, but it would be exactly like how we lived in Colorado!"

In an instance, they picked up on my lack of enthusiasm and exchanged a look, "Max?" Nudge asked, then stopped short.

For a moment, the three of us were quiet. I didn't dare to think anything, because there was a chance Angel would pick up on it. An impossible dream made it's way into my head, but I knew I had made a deal with Jeb. There was no more of this running business.

It was over.

"I don't understand," Nudge said slowly, glancing at Olivia. By the way she was casually flipping the pages of her magazine, it was obvious that she was listening to us, "You don't want to go?" Her eyebrows pulled together, and Angel gripped my hand tighter.

"Nudge," I started, but she cut in.

"Don't you miss us?" she asked.

"Of course I do. Don't be stupid," I smoothed out down her hair, and she looked up at me, her eyes narrow, "But it's different now."

"No it's not," she said, shaking her head, "It's completely the same. We could live the way we used to. It would be exactly the same."

I was stuck. In a second, I was caught up in Nudge's mind, where we lived like we had two years ago, before Angel had been kidnapped. We were together and safe, without anyone telling us what to do. It would be perfect, or as close to perfect as it could be.

The knock on the door unlocked me from my reverie, my dream of a chance of escaping the government's secret grasp they had on us. I couldn't help it; my mind was whirling with unreasonable possibilities, things that no one would go for. Of course, I knew the consequences.

The three of us turned towards the door, and were greeted by Fang and Iggy. Judging by Fang's expression, he was just as taken back by the color of the wall as I was.

I smirked at him as Nudge and Angel got up to hug them. They moved slowly, and I wondered what they thought I was thinking. Fang caught my glance and smiled at me in return, warming up the room.

"You do realize that Gazzy is practically beating himself up outside?" Iggy asked when I wrapped my arms around his neck, "I think he's trying to bipass the laws of gravity. Someone should warn him that he already has wings, so not to push his luck."

"Iggy," I said, "Stop it. He's enjoying himself." I picked up on Iggy's grouchy mood and nudged his arm as a warning.

"Hey," Fang said, getting my attention, "What's up?"

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Is something wrong?"

"You three looked... weird, when we walked in."

I looked at Nudge, who was staring at Angel, "I believe there is somewhere Nudge would like us to be," I said.

The flight there was silent. Too silent. Even Fang looked uncomfortable by lack of noise that was being crossed between us. There were the usual "How was everyone?" but after that, nothing. Nudge and Angel were suspicious of me, and I guess with good reason. There was a lot I wasn't telling them.

Now, we were standing in front of what Nudge had called a house. In fact, in an un-Nudge like manner, she had managed to under exaggerate. It was more of a mansion, than a house. Sure, it was creepy, with spiderwebs the size of my sofa, and ominous looking vines crawling up, but truthfully, it was perfect. The road leading to it was unmanagable, no car would ever be able to get through there. It was close enough to civilation to get food, and there was a small body of water near by that I noticed from the air.

At the end of our unnaturally straight line, Fang gave me a hard glare. He knew where my mind was headed. All I really needed to do was convince Fang to live here with the Flock. I was the only one being tracked, after all. It was completely perfect.

Widening my eyes, I turned away from him and smiled at Nudge, "Whoa," I said, "Is it possible, that for once in your life you didn't exaggerate?"

She smiled, "I didn't land to see it. I didn't know what would be down here. But it's really incredible isn't it? It's what we were looking for, right?"

"Right," It's too bad we were not really interested in the real estate anymore.

Fang came up behind me and tapped my wrist.

"No way," he whispered, "I know what you're planning."

"I wasn't thinking anything," I said loudly. Nudge turned to me.

He gave me a you're-not-fooling-me look, and Nudge asked, "What are you thinking?"

"Nudge, this is really great," I started, and her face feel.

"Don't even say it Max," she said, holding up her hand, "Don't make up some lie. Why don't you just say you don't want to live with us anymore? You really do want us to stay with our parents, just so you don't have to take care of us anymore."

My eyes widened, "No! Nudge, that's not it!"

She stepped closer, upset. "Then why can't we live here?"

"Nudge, we haven't even been inside yet. How do we know that it's safe?"

"But you and Fang are already saying we can't live here! That's what he whispered, isn't it? You don't want to be with us anymore right?"

Everyone was silent. "Nudge," I said, stepping closer. She didn't look angry, but she did look like she was about to cry.

"Max, I'm not some little kid you can push around anymore. I'm almost thirteen! You can't keep lying to me for much longer!" For every step that I took forward, she took another one back, until we were farther away from the others. They could still hear us perfectly, and Fang had followed behind me. Now Nudge had stopped moving, and she planted herself firmly on the ground.

"Tell me" she said defiantly.

I took a deep breathe, "Nudge."

Fang brushed passed me, and made his way towards Nudge. He placed a hand on her shoulder, which was slightly shaking, and whispered something to her that I couldn't hear. Nudge was staring at me the whole time.

"Max?" Gazzy asked from behind me.

Nudge stared into my eyes, her own filling with tears. "I hate you," she whispered, and I exhaled sharply, knowing I deserved it, "Why can't you just tell me? Why do you have all of these secrets? Do you not trust us?"

I stood there, and before I knew it, Nudge turned and ran. I stared after her, and Fang put up his hand, telling me not to chase after her. I wanted to know what he told her, but I was still preoccupied by the fact that she thought I didn't trust her.

"Let's get out of here," Fang said, and he took off, more than gladly followed by the others, to where Nudge was hovering in the air, her back turned towards us. I jumped into the air, slowly moving to where Fang was waiting for me.

This was not how our reunion was supposed to turn out at all.

Alright, so not the best chapter, I know. And especially since I haven't even been on this website in months but…

I'm back! It's pretty pathetic, how I started this over a year ago, and I'm not even done. Someday, if I ever become a well-known author, I feel bad for whoever becomes in charge of assigning me deadlines.

ANYWAY, there's 3 chapters left, so now would be a great time to send me some plot-holes that need to be filled. There a still a few surprises that will turn up in the next few chapters but I just want to make sure that everything is cleared up. Hopefully my next update will be sooner.