Disclaimer: I claim no right to the Maximum Ride universe. Whew. This was totally meant to be a one-shot, two-shot at the most. Hopefully you all enjoyed it. Please review. Much love!

Fang's heart stopped just to hear her name on the man's lips. He was directly in front of him with a hand around his throat in an instant. "You don't get to say her name," he said, all emotion gone from his tone. Standing at six feet and six inches, Fang definitely towered over the man and his enhanced abilities made him significantly more dangerous. He gave the other man a small shake and let him go. "Hurry up and show me what I'm here for so that I can leave."

Jeb nodded, visibly shaken and led the way into the facility. After a few corridors, he managed to regain the ability to speak. "I am sorry that I was vague on the phone, but I feel that this is something you need to see rather than just hear."

He halted right in front of a set of double doors with magnetic locks and turned to face Fang. "Please just keep in mind that all I ever wanted to do was help." With that, he swiped a key card across the lock and the doors popped open with a hiss. He motioned Fang forward.

Fang raised an eyebrow, his warning sense going into overdrive. Something was seriously wrong. "You're not coming with me?"

Jeb looked oddly deflated and shook his head. "It's best if I don't. Best for us both."

"How do I know you won't lock me in?"

The scientist handed him the key card and stepped back with his hands out.

Fang looked it over and narrowed his eyes at the man. He really didn't have much of a choice and despite the insistence of his bullshit detector, he had a stronger feeling that he needed to be beyond those doors. Pocketing the key, he glared at Jeb one more time and slipped through the doors.

The scent of pine and dust hit his nose and for a moment Fang was almost convinced that he had dreamed the last few hours. His senses were confused and wary as he stepped into a stadium sized room that contained a replica of their home and the fifty feet that surrounded it. Scorched trees and low brush ringed the elevated structure of their home. Deep in his gut, Fang felt a sense of foreboding. He wasn't going to like what he found here.

Hooking his thumbs through the straps of his backpack, he took a few running steps and launched into the air. A few strokes of his wings and he landed on the balcony/porch of the house. His stomach turned as he took in the paint that was weather-worn and the screen door that still had the hole in it from the time Iggy had accidentally blown himself through it.

With careful fingers, he slid the glass aside and stepped into a time warp. He could feel the slight tremble of his hands as he took in the clutter and the disarray that had been his home before Iggy and Gazzy had blown it up in their attempt to escape from Erasers sent to destroy them. His dark eyes absorbed everything as he moved slowly through the home he had lost, the home in which he had first known peace. Seeing nothing in the main rooms of the family room and the kitchen, he continued down the hallway, peering into each bedroom as he went. Angel and Nudge's room was empty, as was Iggy and Gazzy's. The bathroom and Jeb's former room also held nothing. A frown crossed his face as he noticed that the room that had been reconstructed as his own was torn to pieces and nearly everything in there was broken.

As if his body knew something that he didn't, Fang's heart beat hard and fast, almost painfully so, as he approached Max's room. Memories threatened to drag him under as he stopped in front of her door. Closing his eyes, the scent of her shampoo swirled around him and he could almost feel the ghosting of her fingers across his neck as he reached out to turn the doorknob. The brass turned easily under his hands, as it always had, and the door swung open on silent hinges.

It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dim light and the reaction wasn't nearly as bad as he was anticipating as he gazed around her room. He took one step inside and then another. Soon he was standing at the foot of the bed with his knees pressed against the worn wood. So many nights of sneaking in here just to watch her as she slept to reassure himself that they were going to be okay. He could almost see her sitting at the window dressed in her usual white nightgown and staring out at the stars.

Her knees were drawn up to her chest and her hair spilled down her back in pale golden waves. He couldn't see her face as her forehead was pressed against the glass, but he could see the faint fog that her breath left on the window. He wanted to reach a hand out to touch her, but his dreams had always ended just as he was about to touch her shoulder. Yet, he couldn't resist the pull and soon he was moving toward the window seat with a hand outstretched, fingers aching to slide through her soft hair one last time. Just as he was about to touch her, he didn't lift his shoe far enough from the floor and the sole scraped across the wood, making a sound that was practically deafening in the extreme silence of the house. And all at once, the specter of the woman he loved turned and belted him across the face.

Fang stumbled back, reeling from the blow, and felt on his ass. Unlike all the other times he had experienced waking dreams, he had been able to touch her! To be honest, she had touched him, but it sent his heart rate through the roof and his stomach to the floor. He closed his eyes and whipped his head back and forth a couple of times before forcing his eyes open to see that she was still there, standing over him with her hands curled into fists and her hair in a riot around her face.

Every cell in his body stopped working the second he realized that he wasn't staring at an apparition or a ghost or some figment of his imagination. His face stung like hell and it was hard to believe anything else as the woman he loved slowly moved backward and folded into the window seat, assuming the position in which he found her.

Long minutes passed before he could draw a breath or hear anything beyond the pounding of the blood inside his head as his brain worked to process what had just happened.

Finally, muscle by muscle, his frame unlocked and he managed to rasp, "Max?"

No response from the figure huddled on the seat with her face pressed to the glass again.

"Max?"

Nothing.

He somehow managed to force his liquefied limbs into a standing position and lurched back to the window seat. He crashed onto the pillow next to her where he had always sat when joining her on her nighttime vigils against the nightmares. Seconds, minutes, hours passed as he tried to come to terms with the idea that Max wasn't dead. His eyes roved over the side of her face that was visible to him, drinking in every millimeter of her that he could see.

She was dressed in white scrubs rather than the nightgown he had initially thought she was wearing and her arms definitely bore the signs of the damage done to her that had caused her death. Thin pink lines stood out in relief against her pale skin, a testament to the welts that had covered her, of the poison that had killed her.

The urge to touch her grew too insistent to push aside and he reached out carefully to press the tips of his fingers against her arm. Her skin was cold to the touch. When she did not react, he cautiously slid his hand up her arm to her shoulder, then her neck until he held the curve of her jaw in his palm. His other hand shook as he brought it up to cradle the other side of her face and gently turn her to him. Bile rose in his throat as he took in the lines striping across her face, traveling over her her cheeks and forehead and cutting across her eye. A large yellowed bruise spread from her left cheekbone to around her eye.

When he finally managed to focus on her eyes, pain burst through his system to be replaced just as quickly with fury. Her gaze was empty. Not just empty of emotion or filled with calm, but completely and totally empty of any thought whatsoever. Fang couldn't stop the small sound of despair from clawing its way out of his throat as the wound of losing her was torn wide again.

His hands dropped from her skin as he fought against the darkness threatening to take him over. The desire to rip the entire scientific population to shred with his bare hands filled him, but even looking at her familiar face despite the complete absence of everything that made Max what she was brought him back down to earth. He would just settle for revenge against the man that had caused this whole situation with which to begin.

Blinking, he vaguely realized that Max had resumed her prior position with her scarred face pressed against the glass and her long limbs curled tightly against her torso. Her bright hair swung back over her face to cover it from his gaze and he was glad for the barrier as it covered the evidence of his worst failure. His failure to protect her.

He stood and allowed himself one last caress along the length of her arm as he said, "I'm so sorry, Max. They, and I, will pay for what we've done to you." His hand dropped to his side and Fang sighed. "I only ever wanted to give you what you needed, even if it wasn't me, even if you didn't know what it was."

Fang's steps were silent as he moved back through the house with one single purpose in his mind. Before the day was over the man responsible for Max's suffering would lay dead at Fang's feet.

It was a short trip back through the house and yard to the double doors through which he had come. A quick swipe of the key card over the center of the doors had them popping open and he was through them in an instant. Jeb looked up in surprise as Fang stepped out in front of him and stood. The dark-haired hybrid slid the pack from his shoulders, not caring where it fell, and grabbed the scientist by his collar to slam him against the wall for the second time that day.

"What did you do to her?" Fang snarled, his rage held in check by little more than a thread.

Jeb swallowed with difficulty and wheezed, "We didn't do anything but save her."

"Is that what you call saving her? Why couldn't you have just left us alone?" Fang said with a shake of the smaller man's frame. "None of this would have happened without you!"

Some fire returned to Jeb's gaze at that. "None of you would exist without me."

Fang dropped him with disgust. "Better that than being your puppets."

"We tried, but the one organ you can't replace is the brain. Not if you want the original personality to remain intact," Jeb explained from the floor. "We've done dozens of scans, tried scores of stimuli to try and figure out what's keeping her from healing completely, from coming back just the way she was. Resurrection's been successful on other subjects who were gone for much longer, but with her -." He sighed. "That house is the only thing that keeps her calm."

Fang curled his hands into fists to keep himself from squeezing the life from his former mentor. As much as he wanted to snap the man like a twig, deep down he knew that it wasn't what Max would have wanted. Well, she would have wanted it, but not the way it was about to go down. Instead, he said, "I'm taking her."

Jeb struggled to his feet, gasping and trying to find the words to protest, but a single glance from Fang killed the words in his throat.

"I am taking her and you will never, and I mean never, attempt to contact any of us ever again. Ever." He narrowed his eyes at Jeb, waiting for a verbal confirmation. The scientist's started to nod, but his gaze shifted beyond Fang to the door behind him. When his eyes opened wide, Fang risked it and shot a quick look over his shoulder only to feel as shocked as Jeb looked.

Max stood on the threshold, thin white fingers curled around the edge of the door and her dark eyes wandering around unfocused. Her features scrunched into something of a frown as she seemed to settle her gaze on Fang and then the man beyond him. Jeb stepped farther into her line of sight and she hissed. Her hands became claws against the metal and she shifted a little as though preparing to pounce.

Fang moved forward, drawing her eyes to him and blocking Jeb from her view. Her hands relaxed a little and one dropped to her side. Her body remained tense, but less like she was going to leap forward in a fury. He hooked his backpack strap with a foot and kicked it up into his grip, sliding his arms through the straps in a smooth movement without taking his eyes from her face. Slowly, he extended a hand to her, palm up. Every nerve in his body was wound tight as he waited for her to react. "Come with me, Max."

If he hadn't been watching her so carefully, he might have missed the flicker of recognition and emotion in her eyes. Surprise and relief crashed through him in a wave so powerful, he felt his knees give way for a brief second before he locked them against buckling. Though he worked hard to disguise it, his fingers began to shake slightly.

Max let her unfocused gaze slide down his arm to his hand and back up to his face.

"Just put your hand in mine, Max. We're leaving," he said, his voice a hoarse whisper that cracked on her name.

Abruptly, her eyes snapped into focus and she reached out to lay her palm against his. His fingers curled around her cool hand. Her eyelids slid shut and he gently pulled her against his body. Electricity tingled through him at the contact and he lowered his head to press a kiss to her forehead. Moving away from her was the hardest thing he had ever had to do, but his grip on her hand was tight as he tugged her after him.

Fang didn't even pause to glare at Jeb as he led her past the misguided scientist, through the halls and out into the open air. He operated on autopilot as he called a taxi from the small city, bundled her into it and directed the driver to the train station.

Time seemed to pass at the speed of sound and the crawl of a snail during the ride to the station. Pulling a thick wad of cash from his pack, he tossed a few bills to the driver as they got out. His grip on Max remained like steel as he pulled her alongside him to the ticket booth. The woman selling tickets gave them both odd looks, but handed over the tickets he asked for as he shoved the cash at her.

It was only when they were settled in a cabin and all the doors and windows were locked and all the shades drawn that he allowed himself to look at her. Though he kept his grip on her hand, his other hand lifted of its own accord and gently smoothed her hair away from her face. He traced the line of her jaw until he reached her chin and could slide a finger under the curve to lift her face to his.

His mask cracked, then shattered as her lovely dark eyes fluttered open and fixed on his. Everything inside him poured out through his gaze as he held her there in his arms. "That was the last time, Max. I'm never leaving you again. And you're never leaving me either. Not until we can go together."

Her whisper was so low that he wasn't sure he heard her, but his lips still twisted in a small smile at her words. "Took you long enough."