Author’s Note: Follows the flock as they die. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, Angel.

Summary: Max ‘expires’ first. The others follow.

Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride.

A Time to Die

You’d never thought that you would last this long – long enough to expire. You always thought you would die in battle, and you had dreaded it, part of the reason you had supported the otherwise foolish plan for a home. You are not stupid, and you know that Max is right – there would be no world to go back to, after.

But you always thought that you would go down together, in a flash f glory. You’re old enough to know that living – at any cost – is better than death, but glory would have been a nice compensation. Death, though, would have been better than this.

Softly, you brush your fingers against the markings on the back of her neck. She shivers, gently; turns around to smile softly at you, and you think you are the luckiest person in the world. “Fang,” she murmurs. Your name, and it always sounds better as she says it, it always sounds more real and yet not.

You live on an island, away from the world, but you know the numbers you were tracing for what they are. The year, you are sure, is this year. The month you’re fairly certain is this month. The day might be today.

You want to be wrong; you have never wanted anything more than you want this, but you won’t be getting it. She moves to stand, and you grab her – you want to hold her one last time. She shakes you off, “My turn to cook breakfast today,” she says. “I want to make blueberry pancakes, and scones, and maybe I’ll start a couple batches of cookies. Nudge knows to how to finish those.”

You swallow, and when you speak, you’re voice is a little rougher than usual. “Are you sure you can manage that without burning our kitchen down?” you ask, and her eyes smile gratefully at you even as she huffs. You need two to play this game, and you’re willing to play along, if that’s what she wants.

She combs her hair out and flounces out of the room. You lie there for half a moment more before following her. If this is truly your last day, you want to spend it together.

By that afternoon, your neck muscles are clenched so tightly that you are half-tempted to ask her to give you a massage. She gives horrible massages – her hands are too rough from all those years of fighting, and her grip is too hard – but it is her touch you crave.

You turn to her in time to see her drop the carton of milk – your last, you think – and then you are there. She reaches, or tries. Her arms don’t move but her eyes do. “Fang,” they say.

You don’t know what to do. You aren’t very good with this emotional stuff, and that’s usually all right with both you and her, but you think she wants you to hold her as she dies, and you’re scared.

It strikes you that this is the last time. This is the last moment of your life together, when you are Max and Fang, or Fang and Max. Now, it’s just Fang.

You want to cry, and you clutch her closer. You can feel her smiling against your shoulder, and you want to tell her that’s it’s going to be okay.

All you can manage is, “You’d better not go anywhere without us.”

You can hear her answer, though she does not speak. “Go anywhere without the flock?” she asks in your mind. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

She doesn’t mean it the way it comes out, but you get it. She’ll be waiting for you – all of you.