Hey y'all, Layman here! Sorry about the hiatus, but I had a bunch of non-MR realted ideas I wanted to follow up on. Beside, the holidays can really wreck havoc on a writers' timetable. Please enjoy this next chapter, in which the story really begins to kick into gear.

Out on one of the many balconies here on the fine city of Atlantis, Fang and I were staring out at ocean, watching the sunset. We'd finally gotten a moment to ourselves, and the sun had been nice enough to dip below the horizon in a beautiful pastel display of reds and oranges layed out on a placid sea of deep azure, stretching out in every direction towards infinity.

Poetry, by Max.

But seriously, it was a pretty cool scene.

And it just belonged to Me and Fang.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" I said, looking out at the picturesque view.

"Yeah," Fang said absently. I couldn't tell wether he was talking about the sunset or something else.

Or someone else.

"You're not talking about the sunset," I asked, eyeing him coyly, "are you?"

"Huh, can't pull the wool over your eyes, can I?" he shrugged, turning to look at me with those deep, soulful, penetrating, ebony eyes.

Not to self; Tell Ella to lay off the freaking chick flicks when we get back.

"Could you ever?" I shot back. He chuckled in agreement, but I could tell he was just playing along. "You were right, you know."

"What about?"

"Living on a desert island," I said, staring out past the sun, "I think I could get use to seeing that every night. Just the two of us."

"Just us, no one else?" Fang asked.

"Well, I'd bring the Flock, of course," I said, a pondering look crossing my face, "and my mom and Ella, no question about that. I might even let Jeb visit every other decade or so." I looked back at him, "How about you?"

"I'd probably bring Brigid with me," he said non-chalantly.

"WHAT!?!" I exclaimed. For those of you who don't know, Fang has a bit of a Red-head fetish, (first the Red Headed Wonder in Virginia, and more recently Dr. Stupendous). It always made me go into conniptions whenever I thought about it, and Fang knew it.

"Yeah," he went on, " she'd probably love to spend sometime alone on an island with me." Oh, I swear, sometimes he could just be so...so...

Fortunately, I can be "so" too.

"If you want to be all 'lovey-dovey' with her," I said offhandedly, "then I guess you won't miss this." I maneuvered my hand around the back of his head and leaned forward into a kiss.

A deep kiss.

Right on his lips.

Just to recap; a beautiful sunset, a handsome boyfriend, and a totally amazing make-out session with said boyfriend. If there was a Patron Saint of Recombinant DNA Bird Children, I'd be prostrating my undying thanks to him (or her) right now.

When I finally pulled away I felt flushed; I was breathing hard and my cheeks felt warm. Fang, on the other hand, still looked the same as ever, albeit slightly confused.

Dang, how did he keep his face so...emotionless? I'd have to ask him to teach me how to do that one of these days.

"I don't think I heard you clearly," he said with mock sincerity, "could you say that again?" Sly dog.

Smiling, I happily obliged.

Just as I was about to enter the closest thing to heaven on earth, the radio burst to life.

"Max, Fang, where are you guys?" It was Iggy. Man, did that kid know how to ruin a moment.

'Stupid piece of retarded crap,' I muttered as I reached for the radio on the other side of Fang. I clicked the button on the side and sighed before saying, "What is it, Ig", not bothering to hide the annoyance in my voice.

"You were making out with Fang just now, weren't you?" he said, sounding extremely smug. I could so totally hear the Cheshire Cat grin in his voice on the other end.

"Did you call just get under our skin or did you actually need something?"

"Nudge, be quiet! Sorry 'bout that. Anyways, we were just wondering if you guys wanted to-excuse me. NO! I don't want to know why Robert Pattinson is the hotest guy on planet; go bother Angel about that."

"Nudge?" Fang asked.

"Sorry about that," Iggy came back, "Couldn't turn off the Nudge Channel."

"Nudge," I said, and Fang nodded understandingly.

"Is that Max?" I heard Angel say. "Can I tell her? I want to tell her!" I heard Iggy groan, then I heard Angel's voice again. "We're going on a picnic, Max!" she said cheerfully.

"We are?" I asked flatly. When did we decide this?

"Yeah, tomorrow. Dr. Wier said we could ride on one of the Jumper things next time it went to the mainland. And guess what, the next one is going over tomorrow morning!"

"You didn't use your mind control thing on her, did you?"

"Nope. In fact, she suggested it to us."

"She said something about one of the scientists here wouldn't stop asking her to 'Rremove zese little terrors beforre I am forced to kill zem'," Gazzy said, doing a perfect imitation of the Czech scientist we met earlier.

"When do we leave? I asked, letting loose one of my famous sighs.

"Early tomorrow morning. Like, right after sunrise," Angel explained.

"Don't be late!" Nudge chimed in in her usual cheerful manner.

And with that, the radio went silent.

"So are we actually gonna go?" Fang asked suddenly.

"What?" I said, my mind not quite fully charged.

"The picnic, are we going along with it?"

I sighed again.

"I don't see why not, it's not like we have anywhere else to go, anyways. Besides, this place, (as cool as it is), still feels a bit like the School, regardless of what they do here."

"I guess you have a point there," Fang agreed. Then his expression changed, becoming so uber sensitive and deep that I don't think even Srgt. Khaki from Hawaii could resist him. "Now, where were we?"

Layman here, sorry about making this chapter shorter then the others. The first chapter update in over a month and it's half the length of the others. But I have a good excuse for it! Ok, maybe I don't. I couldn't really move the story forward the way it was, so I took the next little bit after this and moved it to an entirely different doc. But hey, FAXness! If you're lucky, there might be some more later down the road. I also will not be updating this story as frequently because I am in the middle of another one I I really like writing it. But if anyone wants to help me with this one (I still need a crisis) then drop a line, I'll be listening. Till next time, God Bless, and Happy 2010!