I don't own MR

Welcome one and all to the FUGITVES 50TH CHAPTER SPECTACULAR (PART1)

This chapter was originally going to include Christmas Day as well but it got to be almost 5,000 words so I decided to break it into two parts because something as spectacular as this couldn't be completed in just one chapter. And please read the bottom AN cause that's where your summer present is ;)

So without further ado (adu?) I present to you Fugitives 50th Chapter SPECTACULAR (PART 1):

Fang

"No way," I breathed out, staring at Max in awe. Her plan could most definitely work. Even though she only made slight adjustments she was no longer Max. It was like I was staring at a totally different person in front of me. Her once, long dirty blonde hair was chopped to the wing bones on her back and dyed a beautiful brown color. She had colored contacts in her eyes to hide the light brown irises with a dark green color, and the black tee shirt she was wearing helped to justify that her skin was actually paler than Maximum Ride's gorgeous tan. She had even, with Nudge's help, highlighted certain parts of her face to make her cheeks look more sunken in and her nose sharper than usual.

"Nice to meet you, Sir, I'm Maya Gonzales," Max spoke up, raising her voice an octave to sound girlier; more cheerful. She shot an eager hand out to meet mine with a wink and I amusedly shook her hand.

"Maya huh? Well I have this girlfriend but I think I'd rather spend the night with you," I joked and Max laughed at me, shoving me playfully.

"I'm sure you would, Handsome, but I have to go gift shopping now, so I'll see you later," Max kissed my cheek and turned to saunter out of the room, but I grabbed her arm and spun her around so our chests pressed against each other's.

"Max," I whispered in all seriousness, "if something happens, if you even think someone suspects you, get out of there. I can't be there with you, but, well, if something-"

"Sh, I'll be okay Fang. I do this every now and then and I've never gotten caught," Max promised, her voice dropping back to her regular tone as she wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me. "Besides, the Great Maximum Ride can get out of any situation," she smiled and I let a forced grin cross my face. The last thing I wanted was for my beautiful, amazing, wonderful girlfriend to leave and never come back, but she was in a disguise and when she changed her voice you would never know it was her, so I let her go, knowing she'd come back- or at least, hoping she would.

"Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree, your leaves are so unchanging," Nudge sang obnoxiously, staring at the baby pine Iggy and I had dug up earlier and thrown into the living room.

"It's Thy leaves," I corrected almost immediately, interrupting Nudge's beautiful voice from finishing the song.

"Wh- what?" She asked, turning to me and attempting to raise her eyebrow. However, she failed epically and instead just ended up scrunching her forehead together, which caused Iggy to chuckle and her to scowl at him.

"The song, you got the lyrics wrong," I told her casually, grabbing a candy cane from the box Max had bought when she went gift shopping two weeks ago and placing it on a thin arm sticking out of the small tree. The branch drooped with exhaustion within seconds of the cane's weight touching it, but managed to hold up alright.

"Sheesh, since when do you know Christmas songs? You look like a Jewish kind of guy," Max joked, shoving me playfully, the make-up washed off her face, but the brown dye stained into her hair for months to come. I laughed and shrugged off the joke, shaking my head.

"My mom and I used to sing them every year, and my dad would play the piano… he always wanted me to learn how to play but I was just too clumsy," I told whoever would listen.

For a moment, I watched pity flutter through Max's eyes, but just as quick as it was there, it was gone. I knew she of all people hated feeling pity. It was weakness and a vulnerability not only for me but for her. After a moment of quiet silence Max finally spoke up, breaking through the tension like only she could.

"Alright! Nudge why don't you sing Jingle Bells instead, hopefully you can at least get that one right," she joked and we all laughed lightly before Nudge began to sing.

"Wanna dance?" I asked slyly, bowing and holding my hand out to Max.

"Hmm, well why not? It is Christmas. The only time I allow myself to make a fool out of me," Max grabbed my hand and I pulled her all over the living room as we swayed and hopped to Nudge's melodic voice. She had sang at least ten songs and was on Jingle Bell Rock before Max and I were too out of breath to dance to the beat. I grinned to myself, not having had this much fun in a while. It was nice to know I could still laugh and smile as honestly as I used to. I felt a small pressure as Max stepped on my feet like a little kid would her father. Her flourescent green socks created friction with my gray ones as she stood on them and I swayed slowly, before realizing Nudge's voice fading away as Max rested her cheek on my chest. Music soon filled the room again however, and I realized Nudge had plugged her iPod in to some speakers she materialized out of thin air and was now swinging with Iggy, who had a genuine grin on his face.

"I think I like Christmas alot more now with you," I whispered in Max's ear and she smiled and nodded in agreement.

"I've never quite danced like that, if you can even call it dancing," Max laughed and I smiled lopsidedly at her laugh. It was obnoxious and horrible, and lit up my world. The sound made me happier than a kid in a toy store, and it made me fall in love with her just a little more if that was possible.

"Should we finish decorating our tree?" I asked her and she nodded happily.

"After all, Santa does come tonight. He needs something better to look at than this," Max told me, gesturing towards our pathetic excuse of a Christmas tree.

"Yeah, Santa, that's who's delivering the presents." I snickered at my own joke until I saw the look Max was giving me.

"You say that like he's not real," Max pondered, raising an eyebrow.

"You say that like he is," I countered.

"Because he is," Max narrowed her eyes at me. "What, did he never give you anything?"

"Okay, Fang it's time for me and you to have a little talk!" Ari exclaimed, coming out of nowhere. I blinked in shock at his sudden appearance and warily followed him back into his room, leaving Max to deal with the tree.

"Are you insane? You idiot! Can't you let her believe in anything without ruining it!" Ari snapped quietly once we were safely behind locked doors in his room.

"What are you talking about? Ari, it's Santa Claus, that guy people say comes down your chimney and somehow magically doesn't burn to a crisp, she believes in that?" I asked, bewildered just by the thought. Max, a sixteen year old girl, still believed in something that I had never learned existed until I started going to school and some kids told me about it- or him, I guess I should say.

"Look, when you're isolated as much as Max is, you need something to believe in. Some sort of magic, don't you? Jeb always convinced her Santa was real, and I'm not going to stop and tell her he's not, so let's just leave it at that, alright? She doesn't always need the bitter truth." I knew Ari was just trying to protect Max in a way, but at the same time I found it impossible that Max still somehow managed to believe in someone she obviously never saw. And I can't be the first person to tell her he's not real so why would she still believe?

"You know Ari, she probably knows. She's probably just hanging on to the fact so she thinks she can have something to believe in." I pointed out.

"Well, I don't care what she knows, don't try to tell her something she disagrees with unless it's life or death, got it?"

"You definitely need that 'How to not kill your sister's boyfriend' book," I muttered, exasperated by his furious glare.

"What?" He asked, confused.

"Oh nothing,"

Ari sat on the couch in the living room, right next to Max who was currently getting her ears talked off by Nudge, who was recalling a story to Iggy and I about one of her first major crimes, however, I had zoomed out after the words 'first degree murder' and 'theft' whereas Iggy was still listening, slightly leaned in towards Nudge, a little too close for friendship level in my opinion, but hey, we all had our limits. Ari's suspicious eyes seemed to narrow in on Iggy's hand, which was practically overlapping with Nudge's. I guessed his thoughts were around the same as mine by now, but again, they were friends and all friends had different limits. Besides, like me, Iggy was too in love to cheat on Lupo, and with Nudge of all people? We all knewthatwas never going to happen.

"Hey," Iggy yawned, his hands stretching up in the air and then falling over his sides, his left arm subtly brushing over Nudge's back. I raised an eyebrow at Ari, who seemed to be glaring at the two. Max wasn't looking at them however, so she was totally oblivious to the whole thing. Ari and I shared a look, and for the first time ever, we were communicating through a stare-off. Something's up here,

"Well, I'm going to bed- wouldn't want to keep Santa from coming," Iggy joked and Max looked up at him suddenly as he stood up, her chocolate eyes sad with a broken promise bouncing around in her mind.

"But you promised we'd make cookies tonight, Iggy! I even got all the ingredients to make them from scratch." Max persisted, sounding not like herself. In fact, she almost sounded childish, her eyes wide as she silently pleaded for him to give in. Then again, Christmas turned us all into children in a way.

"Oh, well, maybe we could make them in the morning…" he began, but soon his voice trailed off into the air, leaving a silent promise hanging around. "Oh, alright." He emphasized, sounding like a beat-up dad after a long day's work and wanting nothing more than to go to bed.

"Yes!" Max sprung up from her seat and grabbed Iggy's wrist, yanking him away into the kitchen and I silently prayed to everything and anything that would listen that Max didn't burn down the kitchen.

Left with only three of us, we all made small talk about different missions, recent discoveries, and future dreams. Nothing too personal, just enough to fill the silence, and every once in awhile, if we were lucky, we could hear Iggy's anguished cries as he attempted to tame Max the Cookie Monster.

I couldn't help but to notice how Nudge anxiously tapped her fingers against her thigh and continued to glance towards the kitchen. It was like something- or rather someone was pulling her focus away from us. In fact, she had even stopped talking as much as usual, only speaking a sentence or two before turning back to the door. Finally, after thirty minutes of idle chatter and her forced-out words, she stood and stretched. "I'm going to bed guys, night," she waved at us before lazily climbing up the stairs, and had Ari and I not been watching closely, we would have never seen her sluggish form sprint down the hallway to her room, completely contradicting her tired manner shown earlier.

We both shared a glance, but decided to ignore the matter for now. Besides, Ari had a better chance of finding out why Nudge was acting so oddly so it would be easier for me to just let it go. I turned towards the kitchen and started heading that way. "I'm going to go see what Max has burned down so far," I joked, only to hear the fire alarm go off seconds later. Ari whimpered and sprinted past me straight to his room in a feeble attempt to get away from the flames that were probably about to consume the house while I manned up and headed in.

As soon as I opened the wooden door that rhythmically flapped back and forth, I was met by a suffocatingly large amount of dark gray smoke entering my lungs. I immediately began to cough and choke on the thick air as my eyes watered from the outrageously hot room. "Max! You were only supposed to set the oven for three-fifty!" Iggy shrieked as he swatted a rag back and forth in front of said oven. He quickly shut it off as Max forced a window open.

"I thought you said four-fifty!" She coughed out meekly, and even as I stumbled over to her, I had to smile.

"Oh Max, what are we going to do with you?" I whispered in her ear, attempting to laugh but only choking even worse as I wrapped my arms around her waist.

"Tell me the right degree to heat the oven too!" She snapped accusingly in Iggy's general direction, however when I turned to see his reaction I noticed something; he had left the kitchen. "What… where'd he go?" Max asked herself more than me, squinting through the dark smoke and looking around.

"That's a good question," I muttered, wondering how I could have not noticed him slip away in the few short seconds he wasn't in my peripheral vision.

"Let's go find him so we can re-cook the cookies!" Max suggested brightly, but I shook my head.

"How about we give it a go, just you and me?" I offered, taking a stray egg off the counter and cracking it over her head. "After all, it will be much more fun," I winked as she swiped the egg yolk out of her hair and threw it at me with a playful smirk on her face.

"We are going to wreck this kitchen," she warned, flashing her brilliantly white teeth.

"I'm fine with that so long as I get to take a bite out of you," I spoke, my voice low and teasing. Max laughed and grabbed the bag of powdered sugar.

"Alright, it's on,"

Four hours, twenty-three cracked eggs, two bags of flour, and sugar in places sugar should never be, later Max and I found ourselves laughing at each other as we made our way upstairs to take a nice, long shower to get the raw ingredients off our bodies. We paused at the top of the stairs and I kissed her shoulder, her upper arm, her wrist, her palm, smiling to myself; loving this day. Other than Nudge's odd behavior everything had gone amazingly well, and I only had more to look forward to tomorrow.

"You taste sweet," I told her, looking into Max's eyes innocently.

"Well considering you dumped sugar down my shirt, I would hope so," she joked and leaned on me as we took our own sweet time walking to our room.

"So we're going to stay up till midnight, right?" I asked with a yawn as I closed our door behind us. Max dug around in her backpack and pulled out one of my shirts and a pair of pajama shorts that shouldn't be legal to wear even just around the house.

"Fang, it's past midnight already." Max's eyes glanced over to the bright red numbers blinking on the alarm clock by our bed.

3:00AM

"Oh wow, I guess time flies when you're having fun," I muttered, watching as she walked towards the bathroom. "Hey! Wait up! I need a shower too!" I spoke up suddenly, trying to sound casual and urgent at the same time. Like I expected however, Max rolled her eyes in disapproval and slammed the door shut before I could take a step forward.

"Sweetheart, the day I shower with you is the day the world ends," Max called, her voice muffled from the thin layer of locked, wooden door between us.

My shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. "It never hurts to try,"

I was fast asleep on the floor when a weak kick to my gut startled me to my feet. Half asleep, eyes barely opened, I swung blindly in front of me; only for a strong grip to capture my wrist and bend it until I cried out in pain. My eyes widened in shock as a hand slapped over my mouth, cutting off all attempts at trying to contact Max for help. Had I not been fueled with adrenaline and fear I might have thought to notice that the person who was holding me hostage had a familiar build.

It wasn't until he had dragged me out of the room though, that I realized Ari had been the one to wake me from my nap. His eyes danced with fire, an obvious rage swarming around his body and consuming every nerve, cell, and drop of blood in his veins. He looked about ready to rip a head off of a dummy, and I really didn't want to be that dummy. However, I was slightly enraged myself that he had ambushed me and dragged me out of my room.

"What's wrong?" I snapped venomously, trying to keep my cool. The last thing I needed was to go all Godzilla on Ari-town.

"Iggy is what's wrong," he snarled, causing me to stare on at his angered form in frustration and amusement.

"You kicked me awake to rant about your jealousy?" I asked.

"No, he's cheating on Lupo!" Ari exclaimed quietly, as to not alert the whole household.

"What? Iggy? Cheating? No way." I waved his worry off with the flick of a hand. "Iggy would never cheat on Lupo,"

"Oh yeah? Wanna know what I just walked in on?" Ari offered, and I felt my confidence towards Iggy waver. Could he have cheated? Did the poor guy have it in him to do such a thing to Lupo? I thought for a moment, wondering if I would ever cheat on Max if she suddenly just stopped working. If she froze up and laid down and was always awake but never really alive.

"W- what?" I asked timidly, unwilling to answer my own question. I was afraid of the answer I'd find.

"Well let's just say there might be more than one kid around here after all," Ari muttered bitterly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"What? They were- what did they do when you walked in?" I asked, feeling shock run through my veins. How could Iggy do something so traitorous to Lupo?

"Oh isn't it obvious? They asked me to join in," Ari growled sarcastically. "What do you think they did, Fang? They stopped and begged me not to say anything."

"Oh," I mumbled lamely, his words repeating in my mind over and over again as we stood in silence.

"What did you mean 'more than one kid'?" I suddenly asked confused as to where he got the idea from. After all, Max wasn't having a baby anymore, and Lupo's was long gone.

"Are you serious? Have you already forgotten you're going to be a father in less than nine months?" Ari asked, bewildered, his anger transforming into puzzlement.

"No, are you serious? Max lost her baby, remember?" I attempted to jog his memory until something clicked in my own. Max and I hadn't told anybody what had actually happened those days we disappeared. Nobody knew that the little person inside of her wasn't there anymore. Well, nobody knew until now anyways.

"What?" Ari roared viciously. "What do you mean she lost her baby? If you did something to her I'll-"

"Why are you yelling at him? What'd he do this time?" Max asked jokingly, interrupting Ari mid-rage. She stood in the open doorway in one of my tee shirts that hung almost to her knees on her, with a gray towel wrapped around her hair and spun on top of her head.

"Max, are you seriously not pregnant anymore?" Ari asked bluntly and I let my hand smack my forehead in annoyance at how he oh-so stupidly blurted that out. Max blinked in shock before turning on me and narrowing her eyes.

"You told him?" She snapped, to which I shrugged innocently.

"It just kinda… came out?" I tried, getting a scowl out of my girlfriend.

"Did you tell him about Jeb too?" Max snarled and Ari stiffened.

"Jeb? Did Jeb do it? Did he kill your baby?"

"Oh… I guess not," Max mumbled sheepishly before yawning. "Well, it's getting awfully late, we all should go to bed, night Ari!" Max spoke brightly before grabbing my arm and yanking me into our shared room, slamming the dark wood door shut in her older brother's face as he stood frozen in place.

Just as Max turned the lock on the brass knob Ari began to jiggle the handle and pound on the door. "Maxine Valerie Martinez if you do not open the door this instant I will ground you!" Ari threatened, and a small chuckle escaped my lips as Max flushed in embarrassment.

"Maxine Valerie Martinez?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in amusement to the whole situation even though I should have been scared.

"Uh, my mom gave it to me before- hey! It's none of your business!" Max snapped, yanking the towel off her head and throwing it at my face before storming back into the bathroom. The door slammed shut obnoxiously, shaking the bedroom slightly as I stood there, humbled by her anger towards the fact I knew her real name.

Behind me, reality came stumbling back to life from my state of silence when Ari sighed through the door. "She locked herself in the bathroom didn't she?"

"Yup."

"And she'll probably sneak out the window?"

"Probably,"

"Well, this has been a fun night of discoveries,"

"For you and I both," I agreed before I heard his fading footsteps and knew he was gone, leaving me alone with myself, an empty bed, and a wet towel.

I stayed up the rest of the night, not wanting to spend Christmas in bed alone, but being forced to. So badly did I want to curl into Max and wish her a Merry Christmas and promise I would never cheat on her like Iggy did to Lupo.

"Max, please come home," I whispered somewhere around five in the morning. For most of the past two hours I had been wondering why it angered her so much that I now knew her full name. Was it something so important I wasn't allowed to know? Was I just not important enough to know? I sighed, tossing and turning, throwing my arm over a pillow a few times before remembering it wasn't Max. Max wasn't here.

A groan fell from my lips around six in the morning. I had finally decided to take a shower and wash the egg out of my hair. As I stumbled into our room, eyes barely open from exhaustion, I smacked into something and fell onto the floor. Not thinking about the fact that I was only in my boxers, I snuggled up to the scratchy carpet and began to let sleep take me over when I felt a cold hand brush over my forehead. "Fang, I think the bed is a little bit more comfortable." My eyes shot open as I looked up to find Max crouching beside me, her nose, cheeks, and ears red from the cold air that had nipped at her when she left.

"Max!" I exclaimed, finding just enough energy to sit up and pull her into a long hug, rubbing her arms in an attempt to warm her body. "Oh my God, thank you for coming back," I nuzzled my face into her neck, shivering from the snowy feel of her skin but unwilling to let her go.

"Sorry I just stormed off like that. I just, I don't know, that name brings back some memories. I just, I don't like people knowing my real name. Especially my middle name. My mom-" Max's voice cracked and I hugged her tighter, thinking for a moment before three simple words blurted out of my mouth.

"Nicholas Noah Walker,"

"What?" Max asked, pulling herself arms length away from me and raising an eyebrow at my sudden announcement.

"That's my full name. Nicholas Noah Walker. A secret for a secret, yeah?" I suggested with a small smile.

"Fang, I don't think you get it though-"

"Jeb gave me that middle name. My dad never bothered to give me one and my mom thought Nicholas Walker was fine all by itself. When Jeb took me in though… he told me I reminded him of a son he had… he said he wanted me to have something so that I could never forget what he did 'for' me, and so he permanently changed my name to Nicholas Noah Walker." I explained, trying to show her that the branding would always be there for me too.

Sometimes Max thought she was alone in the world, that she had problems nobody else had to face, and so she didn't like people being bothered with them. So this was yet another good way to show her I had my own problems, and she could console in me too.

"Jeb used to call me Minnie all the time," Max admitted quietly. I stayed silent, waiting for her to go on.

"I was the smallest experiment there, and the youngest, so he called me Minnie. I hated the name at first, but then Ari started calling me it, he told me it was a name to be proud of because the smaller you are, the easier it is to get away with stuff." Max told me, the red on her nose beginning to disappear.

"It's never been easy for me to get away," I whispered, looking down at my wrist. All too well I could still remember the needle piercing my vein, the pain that teased my skin, the little boy tied to a chair who screamed and cried for a mother who was supposed to be dead. "My dad… well, Jeb, had a tracker installed in my wrist. The kind they insert with a needle? I tried to get it out once when I was eight and almost bled to death. You can still see the scar if you squint," I confessed, turning my left arm up so Max could see the long, thin line of tissue that tied itself back together just a few inches away from my wrist.

"oh Fang, that's so- wait! Does it still work?" She asked harshly.

"I uh, well, I think so," I mumbled, causing Max to wince.

"Fang! How could you? That's why Jeb was here! That's how he knew where we were! Oh my God, how could you keep this from me!?" Max shrieked, jumping to her feet. I pushed myself up, grabbing her wrist as she began to pace and pulling her to me so her head rested on my chest.

"Sh, don't think about it right now, okay? It's Christmas, let's just go to bed. We'll worry about it later,"

"But-"

"No buts. Max, for one day, let's worry about nothing. Just one day."

"But Jeb-"

"If he comes I'll rip his head off. No one's going to get to us on Christmas. I promise," I persisted, and Max sighed, shaking her head.

"I hope you're right, Fangles," with that, she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around my neck. "Carry me?" She asked, and I smiled widely, pressing my lips to her forehead before scooping her up bridal style and taking her over to our bed and laying her in it before climbing in next to her.

"Fang," Max spoke up suddenly, flicking one eye open.

"Hm?" I asked, already snuggling in.

"You're in your boxers. Put some pants on." and with those wise words her feet connected to my bare chest and shoved me out of bed.

You're summer prize is; I'm putting a poll up on my profile within minutes of this update so you can tell me who the next POV should be from! If the person you would like to narrate is not part of the choices leave them in your review and I'll tally it all up XD

Now for the heartfelt stuff because this story is 50 CHAPTERS STRONG!

Thank all you guys so very much for all the support, reviews, follows, and favorites. Writing is my passion, but you guys are my fuel. Without my devoted, dedicated, and amazing fans I don't think Fugitives would have ever gotten this far.

So here's to 50 more chapters of awesomeness!

Soar on

VR