Max's breath caught in her throat and she watched in awe as Angel strode hesitantly forward Celeste clutched in her hands like a priceless heirloom ... She knelt beside David and ran her hand lovingly over his forehead then leaned forward and whispered in his ear.
"David ... I have nightmares too sometimes ... You just hold Celeste and your nightmares will all go away," And she tucked the bear into the crook of David's arm.
His hands groped weakly until his fingers found the soft furry face of the bear then he let out a small sigh and pulled Celeste to his chest, hugging her. The heavy lines that had marred his little face melted and his eyes closed. He was still, his breathing soft and even.
Aaron turned wide blue eyes to Angel and blinked, "That was brilliant! Where did you learn it?"
Angel smiled, "He needed something to make him feel safe. To make him feel normal," She hesitated. "When I found Celeste in New York I saw a bear just like me, she made me feel safe."
Max bit her tongue, If I'd only know that, Ange I wouldn't have said 'no'.
Angel turned to her smiling sadly, "I didn't understand why I needed her until now, Max."
Fang shifted on his feet and strode quickly away into the darkness.
"Someone stop him! Those things could still be out there!" Aaron said in a strained but urgent voice.
Max rushed after him, all of the sudden unable to look at Angel or anyone. She couldn't see him anywhere and part of her was afraid there still WERE monsters flying around then she heard a soft choking sound to the east and took of on a run toward the outcropping of rock.
She found him collapsed in on himself, curled into a tight ball rocking back and forth biting back sobs.
The same fearful dread she'd felt when she found him in the park came over her. As if she were looking at someone else someone that wasn't really there, not brave, fearless Fang.
He didn't try to hide himself, or wipe his eyes and act as if he were merely sitting in the dark much like he would have done on any prior occasion. He didn't struggle when she knelt beside him and pulled him to her, stroking the back of his head. He didn't make a sound for close to ten minutes.
"I'm sorry about Jeb," He breathed, "I saw him up there with the gun ... I didn't believe it at first, but... I don't know, he just seemed so much like he used to and I-"
"Don't talk ... Just relax for a minute, I want to be quiet for a while, OK?" She said in a strained whisper.
He nodded and thought about it all. He'd lost his real father before he even met him, and he'd lost the closest thing to a father he'd ever known ... All within three miserable days.
He felt slightly envious of Max, which startled him. Why was he envious of Max? She'd had a mental connection with Jeb and that connection had been severed violently. She'd had to feel him die...
He remembered when Jeb had driven off three days before. He'd been happy to see him go.
Good riddance...
He felt like such an inconsiderate ass now and he wondered absently if Aaron's abilities had somehow turned him into this emotional train-wreck or if it had happened on its own. After years of being 'The Emotionless Fang' the dam of feelings he'd built had broken and now the flood was almost too much to bear.
When it rains it pours, He thought and sat up rubbing his eyes. He held his knees for a minute, staring across the desert at the large bonfire the rest of the flock was seated around.
Max stood and held out her hand, "Come on, everyone's probably starving, let's go back."
He took her hand and let her pull him to his feet, not because he couldn't get up on his own, but because he needed the contact.
Max walked around the fire to where Angel had left her backpack and began rummaging in it for food.
Fang wiped at his eyes again, not particularly looking at anyone and unzipped his own backpack looking for something other than granola bars...
Jeb's computer ... Jeb had been reading HIS file.
"Max!" He wrenched out the computer opening it and waiting for it to resume its open programs. Maybe Jeb had left some clue, some priceless bit of information that would make everything so easy to understand.
The screen faded from black to blue and his file popped open. Max walked over handing out granola bars on her way.
He pointed and showed Max the file and she yanked it out of his hands "Is this the stuff from the computer in New York?" She sat heavily on the ground. "Jeb had this the whole time?" Her voice was barely above a whisper and she knew only Fang could hear her.
"I'd be willing to bet my file is not the only one he's got on that thing Max."
She clicked on another file and stared at it awe. It was a girl, an older photo of a girl with long curling light reddish-brown hair, brown eyes and black wings. She looked so frighteningly familiar. That darkly intense gaze in her near black eyes...
The first line of the file was in red, "Terminated," And then her eyes fell on the girl's name. "Kitty..."
Kitty ... Where had she seen that name before?
She clicked back onto Fang's file and noticed something different about his name. Something that hadn't been there on the files in New York;
Fang, Gen2
Max looked at the bottom of the screen and opened the last two programs staring in openmouthed shock as David's and Aaron's files sprang open before her.
Sandman, Gen2 ... Constantine, Gen2...Gen2...
She wished desperately that Jeb/Voice would clarify it all but she knew that would never again happen. Jeb was dead...
Kitty and I spent every waking second trying to find you-
And then it all hit her like a ton of bricks.
Max clapped a hand over her mouth and made an exquisite coughing gag sound in her throat.
Gen2 ... GENERATION 2.
The girl looked to be about her age a teenager, just like they'd said, just a teenager ... She stared at Kitty, in awe, horror and a kind of dumbstruck humor.
They'd always joked about this but she'd never- NEVER expected to actually face the facts of it.
"What? What is it?" Fang tried to take the computer from her. "Did you find my expiration date or something? Am I going to die!" His voice was strained.
Max shook her head, "You're not going to believe this, Fang. You're just not going to believe this."
"What?" His voice cracked and he put a hand to his throat suddenly aware of how high pitched that sound had been. Had Aaron damaged his voice-box trying to strangle him?
Max licked her lips. "I just found your mother."
His eyes went wide and his jaw worked up and down soundlessly. He snatched the computer away from her and stared at the picture for close to a full minute. It was the same young woman from the other picture he'd gotten from the lab in New York but this time he could see-
"She ... She has wings ... M-Max, she has wings!"
He swallowed and stared down at the picture in awe then looked at his brothers' files. "We were hatched..." It came out monotone, in barely a whisper.
His head snapped up and he stared at her in the pale light from the computer screen. "Oh, my God, M-Max I was hatched!"
He clambered to his feet and rushed forward.
"Guys! Guys, look at this!" He said his voice shrill, his feathers on end.
Gasman, Nudge and Angel gathered around him staring at the computer screen mouths open. Iggy clambered to his feet, "What, what is it? Hello, blind guy wanting to know what he heck is going on!"
Gasman turned, still pointing at the computer, "Fang's hatched!" His blue eyes were round as dinner plates.
Iggy's jaw dropped and his eyebrows shot up from behind the bandana tied about his head. "Fang's HATCHED!"
"My mom was one of us, Ig!" He said loudly, wishing Iggy's eyes worked so he could see how beautiful his mother was in all her teenaged, winged, NON-crackhead glory.
Aaron threw a sizable rock at Fang and it bounced off his thigh, "There's a photo of our mum in there?"
Fang nodded a wide, teary grin spreading across his face.
"Then what the hell are you doing standing there like the royal-sodding-guard! Bring it to me, I want to see her too!"
They'd all taken turns staring at the picture of Fang's mother and Aaron had even woken David up to see her. Then they'd all sat solemnly heads bowed, and mourned her.
"He didn't talk about mum much ... Not until that night ... The night he got your E-mail and realized the person we'd seen in the news papers was you. But he never mentioned this! He only said that he and mum were just kids. Sixteen years old and married with a babe on the way..."
Fang wiped at his eyes, at first pretending merely to rub dust from them then openly drying tears on his shirtsleeve.
"I've never met him, but Dad said we have an uncle living in Oklahoma ... Allan. Dad said that Allan helped him and Kitty shortly after they were married. I never understood why they would need help ... But it all makes sense now. I'm not sure if Allan is even still alive though ... Maybe we could look into it once we're ... Once we're wherever we're going."
Max nodded, "If he's still alive we'll find him."
The sun was coming up and the camper-bonfire had burned out, leaving smoking ashes and bits of melted metal behind.
Max rubbed her eyes and stretched looking out over the desert, her heart breaking. So much pain. So much death...
Jeb's body was out there somewhere. She could just picture it flattened like a pizza- She turned her head, pushing the thought from her mind almost as quickly as it came to her.
No ... She was not going to remember him like that she would not. She would remember him as she saw him ... Her father.
She wondered if someday she would tell this story to her own children. Would she tell them of the brave man who gave his life to save a couple of mutant bird-kids? Or would she even be alive to tell the story to anyone when it was all over. Would there be a world left to hear her?