He'd noticed the faint sheen that crossed her eyes as they swerved towards the coast. Knowing Max, she'd blame it on the wind if he said anything. But he knew better, knew Max better. She'd been off lately, alternately snapping at him- more than usual, anyways- and then falling silent, that pinched expression on her face. The one she got when she was in pain.

He dipped his wings and swerved gracefully, hovering next to her, their wings beating perfectly in sync. "Yo," he said quietly, testing the waters. Sometimes when she got like this, it could take a while to snap her out of it.

Max's head jerked to the side and he saw recognition flood her features. No more dead-eyed stare. "You okay? Is this another headache?" He kept his voice low, even more so than usual. No need to freak out the kids if something was really wrong.

Max swiped at her eyes quickly with one hand, confirming his suspicions. She was crying. Shit.

Almost unconsciously, he shifted his weight midair, ready to dive and catch her at a moment's notice, if needed. It was something he'd been doing frequently, ever since the day of the first headache.

When Max nodded, he tensed, ready for the drop. The headaches, he knew, were blinding. Excruciating. He'd never seen her in so much pain as that first time, never heard her make those sounds.

Now, Max looked unsteady as she flew, her lips pressed together in a sharp line, the corners of her eyes wrinkled up and harshly lined. "Yeah," she hissed, "a huge, freaking, unbearable headache!"

Fang didn't even have time to process the statement before she hunched her shoulders, and he realized she was about to run. He opened his mouth, but was cut off. "See you at the beach," she muttered, voice low and wild and bitter and angry and so, so freaked. And then she was gone, speeding away, and try as he might, Fang knew he'd never be able to catch up.

Shit, shit, shit!

Fang poured on the speed, eyes trained on the trailed of ripped-open clouds. His mind raced, working in overdrive. Something was seriously wrong with Max. The conversations at Anne's house, the ones about killing her, her imminent death… Fang shut down those thoughts as quickly as possible, but not before the sickening images flashed across his mind. Max, pale and still, wings crumpled and broken, dead at his hand.

Shit!

He could hear the rest of the flock flapping furiously to keep up, and cursed aloud in an uncharacteristic display of frustration. No matter what, he couldn't let anything happen to Iggy or the kids, strung out and exhausted as they were. Max would never forgive him. He'd never forgive himself.

He dropped back just a bit, just enough that Angel, small and quick Angel, could reach out and clip his wingtip. "Fang? Is Max okay?" He clamped his lips shut. Gave no answer. He couldn't do this right now. Wasn't cut out for the leadership thing. So he just kept flying. He knew they'd follow.

It took nearly ten minutes to reach the coast. He scanned the sands with raptor vision, searching for that familiar blond-brown hair. Spotted it. And nearly fell from the sky as he picked out the brilliant scarlet of the sand at her feet.

Heart stops. Time stops. Rushing in his head. These things Fang would remember later. He wouldn't remember dropping like a stone and sprinting down the beach, only the terror, the blind terror that flooded his veins and choked him, the slipping and tripping and scrambling across the shifting sand.

And then she looked up, face white, arm bared and oh, God, blood pumping furiously from the gash across her forearm, and in her hand, a sharpened shell fragment, and oh, God, he had never been so angry and so afraid.

"What the hell are you doing?" He was vaguely aware, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he was shouting, but Fang couldn't really find it in himself to care. He grabbed for her wrist, knocking the bloodstained shell from her grip and yanking her towards him. "Are you crazy?"

"Want the chip out," she said, quietly, so quietly, and her face was still, and her eyes, so closed-off before, were swimming with tears. He registered somewhere in a distant corner of his brain that she was kneeling in her own blood, looking for all the world like a little girl in a horror movie, the kind Nudge liked to sneak on late night TV. But his vision was blurred with red- red anger, red blood, red red red- and fragility was the last thing on his mind.

"Look where you're cutting! You're going to bleed to death, you idiot!" He smacked her hand away so she wouldn't feel how badly his was shaking and ripped open his backpack, tossing supplies haphazardly on the wet beach. Band-Aids, gauze, tape, antiseptic… disinfect, elevate, bind-

He caught her wince as he literally poured half the bottle of TCP across the broken skin before gripping her wrist tightly once more as he bound the wound with greater efficiency than an ER trauma surgeon might wield a scalpel.

The kids inched forward, for once quiet and solemn. "Max," Nudge whispered tentatively, the first time he'd heard her voice so blank and absent of her trademark attitude. "What were you doing?"

He kept working, rolling the sterile white gauze tightly around her forearm, but for God's sake, he was listening. He damn well wanted an answer, too, wanted to know how she could be so goddamned stupid-

"I wanted to get the chip out," Max whispered, and he felt her tremble in his bones as he whipped his head around to look her in the eye.

"Well, forget it!" he hissed, barely breathing, teeth clenched so tightly he would wonder later why his jaw ached so. "The chip stays in. You don't get off that easy! You die when we die!"

Dying is, after all, an eventual guarantee for the Flock, but he's never wanted to think about that, while max, he knows is always brooding over it. White hot pain flashes through his limbs as that image of her reappears behind his eyelids- Max, pale and still, wings crumpled and broken, dead-

"I'm sorry," she warbled pathetically, and before he could even register the utter wrongness of her voice and that tone, she burst into tears.

Oh, shit.

Fang wasn't even sure he had words for this messed-up situation. Max- she didn't cry. Ever. And yet there she was in front of him, sobs ripping free of her heaving chest like he'd never seen before. Antiseptic forgotten, bandages abandoned, he drew her into his chest with gentleness he didn't know he possessed. Her body was small against his; they hadn't been this physically close in years, and he was startled to feel the relative delicateness of her frame. Max was always the strong one. She kept the Flock together, held them tightly in an iron grip, and yet here she was, feeling for all the world like nothing more than a teenage girl with a broken heart.

*A/N*

Hope you enjoyed- please remember to review!

-Iri