A/N: Guys I am so, so sorry. I can not apologise enough for the delay. This would have been up 3 weeks ago (still late, I know) but there were mix-ups with editing. So big thanks to Cordelia Rose who helped ensure that this was uploaded today.

NOTE: VERY IMPORTANT A/N AT THE END, DO NOT SKIP.

Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride or any of its characters.

"…There was also a poem written about the battle by Marriot Edgar which goes as follows: I'll tell of the Battle of Hastings / As it happened in days long gone by / When Duke William became King of England / And… Max?" I look over to Dylan as his voice stops. "Are you listening?" I sigh and nod my head. He frowns and drops the notebook in his hands. "Right, just tell me. I can tell your mind's somewhere else and you're not gonna learn anything until it's off your chest. You can talk to me, you know?"

I roll my eyes. "Thanks Dylan, but I'd rather just get this history stuff out of the way."

"No, you were really upset earlier and–"

"How about you mind your own business, yeah?" I snap.

"Max…" He flicks his hair in a really girly way, "I don't think we got off on the right foot. Can we start again, please?"

"Whatever floats your boat."

He smiles, holding out his hand to me. "I'm Dylan."

"Max. Now can we move on?" I ask. He rolls his eyes, sighing in frustration. He mutters something before finally resuming tutoring me.

Val rushes in after what feels like hours of Dylan's mindless chatter. "Can you two help me with tea?" She asks.

"Sure," I say immediately, glad for an excuse to stop the boring tutoring session. Dylan and I follow her into the kitchen: a big, shiny room that I've never been in before.

"Ella is going on a date soon so we'll have to make something fast," she says, flustering about the place. "Max, can you get the pasta on the boil? Dylan: prepare some veg."

"Fine," I grumble. The kitchen is suddenly abuzz with movement but not another word is spoken until a voice calls for Val.

"Oh Lord," she mutters, throwing down the tea-towel and running out of the room. A few minutes pass which Dylan and I spend in awkward silence, the only sound his knife against the chopping board.

"That's probably done now," he tells me, nodding towards the stove where the pasta is boiling. Without thinking I grab the handle of the pan to pull it off the hob. I yell out various curse words and drop the pan on the counter.

"Here," Dylan orders, pulling on my arm. He leads me over to the sink and cradle my burnt hand under the running water. I hiss in pain and try to pull my hand away.

"Stop, it'll hurt otherwise."

"I've suffered worse," I say, rolling my eyes and yanking my hand out of his iron grip, not without difficulty.

"Max–"

"No thanks," I snap, trying to keep my face stoic and annoyed."At least put this on it," he insists, passing me a tube of medical burn cream from a cupboard.

"Fine." I reluctantly do as I'm told.

"Maaaaaax!" Ella calls, running in, "Do I look okay?!" I look up at her. She is dressed in a knee-length dark purple dress with black 4-inch heels. Her dark hair is perfectly curled, one ringlet falling across her face.

"You look great," I answer honestly, "But maybe wear some shoes you can walk in, yeah?"

"Come help me look for them?"

I shrug and follow her upstairs, leaving Dylan to finish dinner.

After dinner, Ella asked me to help her with her makeup. Fifteen minutes later, we are still looking for the damned mascara.

"Ella, hurry up," Val says, popping her head round the door, "the poor boy's been waiting for ages." I look up in surprise as Ella cries my name.

"Go and keep him company," she demands desperately.

"Wha- me?!"

"Yes, go! Val, can I borrow your mascara?" And with that I am shoved out of the room, towards the stairs.

"Hey," I say to the tall blonde standing by the door. He turns to me, cloudy blue eyes blinking slowly. "Ella will be a while; pre-date drama." At this he blushes slightly, then nods.

"Well I'm Iggy." He hits my stomach with his hand. "Oh sorry, I'm blind. Kind of awkward, I once hit a girl in her-"

"That's okay," I cut him off before he can say any more. "I'm Max." I shake his hand awkwardly.

"You're American?" he asks me.

"Yep."

"Cool, I've got a cousin who lives over there. We call him Abigail to annoy him, but we all know he likes it really."

I nod slowly, trying to think of something to say in response.

"Hey," Fang says quietly, emerging from the games room. "You nervous?" he asks Iggy.

"A little," he admits.

"Well she's up there scouring the house for mascara right now," I tell him, "so you better gaze into her eyes all night." At this, Fang chuckles softly. There is a moment of unusually comfortable silence before Fang speaks up.

"By the way Ig, a friend recommended an awesome song the other day. I thought it would be a good one to cover." His eyes drifted to the ceiling for a moment, eyebrows drawn together in concentration. "'Radioactive' by… Imagination… something…"

"Imagine Dragons?" I supply. He snaps his fingers and points at me, though doesn't utter another word. "Such a cool song," I agree. "Wait- cover?!"

"Um, yeah." Fang bows his head, clearly embarrassed. "We're in a band called 'The Flock'."

"But we're mostly doing covers right now 'cause our songwriter quit," Iggy adds, annoyance creeping into his otherwise friendly tone. I decide not to ask why.

"Why don't you write songs yourselves?" I suggest. At this they both stifle laughter.

"We tried. It didn't end well," Fang mumbles, smirking at the floor.

"Well keep trying, you'll improve," I say just as Ella tumbles down the stairs.

"I'm ready!" she yells with glee, as if that fact wasn't made apparent by her entrance. She walks up to Iggy and grabs his hand. "Bye Fang, Max," she says quietly before tugging Iggy towards the door. Fang taps Iggy gently on the shoulder as he leaves and then the grinning couple are gone.

Fang scratches his head, as if confused about something, and then coughs awkwardly. I shift from foot to foot before eventually realising that this guy isn't rude enough to just walk away, but has suddenly decided he's not talking to me. I glace over at him at the same time that he looks up at me from beneath a streak of dark hair. We both turn our heads quickly.

After we have been standing here for over three silent minutes I say, "Bye," and quickly bound up the stairs, retreating to my room. I close the door behind me and sigh, flopping down face-first on my bed.

A/N: I feel so guilty doing this to you guys when it's taken me so long to update this chapter but here goes: I'm going on hiatus. So I figure you guys deserve an explanation. Well, as I'm sure many of you can understand, school is taking over my life and I have less and less time to write. It's become a choice between regularly updating with rubbish, 1st draft, unedited chapters or monthly updates with decent writing. I read a lot of fanfics myself and I can't stand bad writing OR slow updates. So all I'm asking is that you wait until I've done a draft of the whole story (I should have done this before I started uploading anything, sorry guys) and then I'll be able to give you weekly updates. And rest assured that I will be writing constantly over the next few months, this isn't me slacking off. In fact I'll probably be working harder as I'll be able to shape the story more as a whole than each chapter separately. I will also be rewriting Chapter 1 as I know it sucked so much. Forgive me guys.

In the meantime here are some things for you to do (if you want):

*Follow me or this story so that you'll know when I do update (Warning: I may also be changing my name sometime soon)

*PM me! I'd love to chat to more of you. Don't be shy, just say hello.

*Read 'Across The Universe' by Beth Revis! It's my favourite novel of all time but not many people know it exists. Read the blurb and you'll think it's your typical sci-fi novel, read the book and you'll see that it's so much more.

*Review below or PM me with one-shot prompts as I may start doing a few on the side so that you guys don't hate me forever.

*Recommend this story to your friends…?

*PM me if you need a Beta-reader, I'd love to help.

*Check out Cordelia Rose as she's got a new MR fic up – and tons of Merlin ones if you're a fan of that.

*Don't kill me for doing this, and don't give up on me just yet.

Bye for now.

Leoni

X