A/N: Hiya. So here I am sitting in front of the computer again. I'm coming full circle.

"Fang?"

I look up from my backpack that I'm throwing together, burying the chocolate bar I just put in deep to the bottom. Gazzy's standing in the doorway, his hand shoved in the pocket of his jacket.

"Yeah?" I say. I stand and he looks up at me, his eyes wide.

"Why doesn't Max want me to come get Ange?" he asks. He pushes his hands farther into the jacket, making the star on it stretch downward. He looks at the floor. "She's my baby sister. I'm s'posed to protect her."

I'm just standing there awkwardly, wishing I'd stayed down, my brain scrambling for a response. "Max loves you just as much as Angel," I say finally. "She doesn't want you to get hurt."

"Yeah, but I won't get hurt. I'll beat those stupid whitecoats into a pulp." His eyes narrow, and he takes his fists out of his pocket so that he can mash them together in the universal sign for Don't mess with this mess.

"Gaz." I kneel and look him in the eyes. "Put yourself in Max's shoes."

"I don't like Max's shoes," Gazzy mumbles. "And they don't fit me, anyways."

"Listen," I say. "Did you ever think…The Erasers saw us here. So they're coming back."

"Obviously," Gazzy says, nodding. Then he brightens. "You think we could take 'em? Me and Iggy? Blow 'em up or somethin'?"

I nod.

"And we can make sure that the house doesn't get blown up too!"

"That would be nice." I send a prayer to the big man that they will not blow up the house. I honestly wouldn't put it past them.

"But still."Gazzy crosses his arms, and my hope falls. I'd been hoping to distract him. I guess that ain't happening. "I need to go. Angel is MY sister."

"Fang!" Max yells. "What are you doing, packing your whole closet? Come on!"

"Sorry," I say, and push past Gazzy. I clomp down the stairs, zipping my backpack and swinging it on as I hit the last step.

Max narrows her eyes. "You're so slow."

"No," I say, "just at ease."

At once I realize that it's the wrong thing to say. Max snorts and turns her back to me. Nudge is already outside, looking worried.

"Come on, guys," she says. "We need to get going. It's already almost eleven and it takes us seven hours to get there, which means we won't be there until six if we stop, but we will stop, hopefully, so maybe we won't get there until seven, which is eight hours from now, which is a long time, so we need to –"

Max cuts her off with a glare.

"Max," Iggy shouts. He must have come down the stairs without me noticing. "Please."

"No," Max shouts, and leaps into the air. I adjust my pack over my wings and snap them open, enjoying the feel of the wind in my feathers. For a moment all I can see is shiny blackness as they cover my face, but then they fly open to the sun. I run forward and then pull myself off the ground, experiencing the one terrifying moment where I don't think I'm going to make it. But then my boots clear the grass and I'm airborne.

Nudge gives the boys one last, quick hug each and follows us. Her wings are the same color as her light brown hair, creating an altogether caramelized effect that makes my mouth water.

Then we fall into formation and begin flying.

**!**

About two hours later, we have crossed the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and are flying straight into the sun. Max opens her mouth, and I half-wish something would fly into it – a small bird, maybe. I am starting to get seriously annoyed with her.

"We clear on Plan B?" she asks for the twentieth time.

I nod, and Max's eyes unfocus for a second. Then she shakes her head and turns to Nudge.

"Uh-huh," says Nudge, and plunges straight into a play-by-play. "If we get separated somehow – though I don't see how we could, unless maybe one of us gets lost in a cloud or something – do you think that could happen? I haven't ever been inside a cloud. I bet it's creepy. Can you see anything inside a cloud –?"

Max shoots her a look, and she pauses. I consider how we can go from talking about saving our fellow human-avian hybrid to talking about clouds.

"We meet up at the northmost point of Lake Mead," Nudge finishes quickly.

Max nods."And the School?"

I tune out of their little conversation – I've heard it about twenty times already – and focus on the ground whipping past below us at ninety miles an hour. The mountains had faded to desert, and the shifting sand below us give off heat that we can see, like it's asphalt.

"On the plus side," Max says in my direction, "flying is just really, really cool."

I look at her and give her a half-smile in order to make her think that I've been listening to her for the past five minutes. She blushes a little, her white and tan wings working powerfully above her shoulders. Our wing tips brush. She doesn't even notice.

"On the minus side, we're mutant freaks who will never live a normal life," Max finishes, glancing at me. I shrug.

"Win some, lose some," I say, and am rewarded with a wry smile from her. I can tell that she thinks that ninety miles an hour isn't fast enough, but we can't go any faster. Nudge is struggling at this speed, and we have to stop soon. Everyone is getting hungry, including Nudge, who is holding her stomach. But when she opens her mouth, it isn't to ask for food.

"Max?" she begins, looking at said Max. "I was thinking. I mean, right before we left? I just looked at Jeb's old files, you know? And some of them were about us. Or me. I saw my name on a page, my real name, Monique, and then some other people's names, and then – Tipisco, Arizona. Tipisco is right on the Arizona-California border – I found it on a map. Real tiny town, it looked like. Anyway, I was thinking, none of us ever knew our real parents, and you know, we've always wondered, or at least I mean I've always wondered, but I guess the rest of you have too, like, whether they gave me up voluntarily or whether –"

(A/N: If you care, that little speech of Nudge's is 113 words long. :O)

"Nudge. I know how you feel. But those names might not have anything to do with you. We don't know if we were just test-tube babies or what. Please. Let's focus on rescuing Angel."

Max is unconsciously shooting down Nudge's dream, but I see it in her very expression: her arms cross, her shoulders hunch, and her brow furrows. Amazingly, she doesn't say anything.

"Nudge?"

"Yeah," says Nudge slowly, a bit angrily, "okay. I was just thinking."

Max's face suddenly dawns with the realization that she's going to pay for this later. I bite back a laugh and focus on our rescue mission.

There she be. *smiles* I love everyone who reviews! And just out of curiosity, what's your favorite song? Tell me, tell me, tell me! Loves and kisses, Schne