The Epilogue

To cut a long story short, we flew to the nearest town and dropped Ari off with his designated relatives. Then we grabbed a taxi with the cash that Jeb had supplied us, there was enough to last us about a week. We bought jackets to hide the bloodstains and most of the dirt as well as, you know, wings. Those things have a tendency to be pretty obvious.

I located a motel, renting two rooms. We didn't really talk or argue much, being almost completely exhausted, too tired to plan ahead and too sore to look back.

Iggy and Fang took one room, the girls and I took the other. The rooms were right across the hall from each other. I made Angel take a shower first while I inspected Nudge's injuries. She was pretty badly bruised from where she had attacked the Erasers, but there were no claw marks on her. Not because she stayed out of the battle, but rather because she could dodge pretty much anything.

Even though Nudge was the least injured, she was by far the most bloody. I don't even want to know what the hell she did to earn all the spatters she had, but at least it got her out. I decided not to bandage anything up before she was properly showered and free of all the dirt. She looked dead on her feet.

A couple of minutes later, Angel exited shower and Nudge went in. I took out a medical kit (courtesy of Jeb again) and bandaged her wrist, as well as disinfecting her shoulder. I picked the last twigs out of her feathers and sent her off to bed. She didn't complain as she fell in, exhausted.

I leaned back on the couch, closing my eyes for a moment.

"Hey," Fang said. I didn't even turn around as he sat down onto the couch next to me.

"Hi," I replied. I flicked my eyes towards him. "What happened to your tan?" I asked teasingly.

"It was dirt."

It was pretty amazing, actually. Fang's hair already had some of its old gloss back to it, and his injuries were looking a lot better. Although the dirt removal had uncovered some pretty nasty stuff – like a bruise on his cheek the size of my fist.

"You can shower in our room," Fang said. "Iggy's done, and I think Nudge is going to take a while in there."

"You're not allowed to join me," I said automatically, rising to my feet.

"Dammit," Fang sighed, smiling. "There goes my plans for the evening."

When I emerged from the shower, wearing a giftshop shirt from a 24-hour store down the road, Fang was sitting on the couch, looking at the TV. It was off, and I knew he wasn't actually seeing anything. The old me – the one from before – told me that he was probably looking at his reflection.

"Can you help me get the glass out of my arm?" Fang asked. "Iggy offered to do it, but he looked pretty beat. And I don't want to really let a blind dude prod around in my arm."

I cast a glance at Iggy. He was lying on the double-bed, out to the world. "Sure," I said, going back to our room and getting the medical kit. He held out his wrist towards me, and I gently started picking out the pieces. Every now and then his free hand would grab my unused wrist a bit tighter, and I'd squeeze back. After ten minutes all the glass was out, but his wrist was bleeding again. After a dose of disinfectant and some bandages, and he seemed almost back to his normal self.

"Done," I said, looking back up into his face. He bit his lip and looked down, not meeting my eyes, his breath shaky as he exhaled. "It's okay," I said reassuringly. "We're okay."

"I thought you were going to die," he said, his voice husky. "And – Gazzy –and this wasn't how we were supposed to get out. You weren't supposed to look like you went through a blender."

"We're going to be okay," I said soothingly, sliding up the couch, putting my arm around Fang, my hand finding its way into his hair. The keywords there were going to be. None of us were okay right now. It felt strange to run my hand through hair that wasn't matted down with dirt and grease, hair that was untangled and soft. He shook – just the tiniest bit – and I held him tighter, trying to get him to be still, to be calm.

Once his breathing had returned to normal, I kissed him gently on the lips, trying to avoid the bruised section of his face. He wrapped his arms around my waist and sighed, sounding exhausted.

"I love you," I said, untangling myself from him. "Go sleep. We'll figure things out tomorrow."

Fang smiled, It was an exhausted, difficult smile, but genuine.

Just before I closed the door, Fang spoke again.

"Max?" he asked.

"Yeah?" I replied, holding the door ajar.

"I really do sleep naked." He said. "Just thought you'd want to know that. And I love you, too."

I chucked huskily. "I hope you warned Iggy about the naked thing. I don't think he'd appreciate that sort of surprise," I replied, closing the door fully.

We all slept for a solid twelve hours before any us even began to stir. D – Angel slept right through for an extra three hours. We didn't disturb her because we didn't want to make her have to fall back into reality just yet.

We finally left after two days of recuperating, which basically meant we spent a lot of time quiet, thinking about how we all could've saved Gazzy. Running scenes and situations through our minds, pushing all the 'What if's around, letting them slosh around in our minds and fester.

It was painful. None of us knew what to say to each other. We were free, but we'd paid with an innocent boy's life. He knew he was going to die – and he walked head-on into the crowd of Erasers, ready for it.

We all cried at one stage, except for Fang. He was rapidly becoming more and more closed off with his emotions, barely saying anything. Nudge talked even more, and Angel started wanting to control everything. Iggy used sarcasm compulsively. I lost all faith in authority.

We all changed in a way.

The night before we left was the one where we finally learned how long we'd been gone for, how much we'd missed out on. We flicked on the news on one of the shoddy TVs. There was nothing was new, really. People fought wars. Politicians made promises they couldn't keep. My favourite soccer team lost again. It wasn't until the date flashed at the top of the screen did I really begin to realise how much time we'd actually lost.

We'd been in the School for a year and one month.

"How is that possible!?" I cried, staring at the screen. "It barely felt like four months!"

Iggy paused to consider. "The drugs," he concluded. "It skewered our perception of time. Made our days seem shorter, making us less likely to fight back if we thought less time was passing," he said thoughtfully.

I wanted to cry. I was due to turn seventeen in a month. I'd lost so much time. We all did. It was time that I could've gone to school, met up with friends, make grand discoveries about my life. We were all horrified – and decided to leave the very next morning. After a few flights, a bunch of cabs, and a rather weird incident involving some pigeons, we finally made it to our home town.

The thing is about coming back to an old place is how painful it is to realise that it's changed so much. But then you realise it wasn't the place that changed, it was you. The buildings were still the same. The roads and people were more or less no different. But I was looking at everything through a new perspective, a new set of eyes. The roads were the same, just the people walking on them were different.

The smell of the pines nearly made me buckle over as we walked down suburbian roads. It smelled like home. We'd agreed to stop at my house first, but the cabbie didn't want to go too deep into suburbia, so he stopped a few blocks away from my house.

It was the most painful walk of my life. The sky was filled with orange again, this time of a sunset. Everything was painfully similar, and achingly different. The playhouse in one of our neighbour's lawns had been taken away and replaced a trampoline. A new couple had moved in at the bottom of our street.

Spotting my house bathed in the orange glow made my eyes sting. There were new potplants on the porch, the curtains in the windows a different colour. I felt out of place with my cropped hair and the bandages lacing my arms, and some people were staring the procession. No-one seemed to know us. I'd lived in this house for thirteen years, and now not a soul knew me, I realised with a pang.

I rang the doorbell.

As we waited, I realised that this wasn't the end. We'd still have to find our families, go out into the public with our story, and try and figure out where to begin with putting our lives back together. We'd have to get Iggy's sight back. This wasn't our happy ending, but it was the closing of a chapter. New things could grow in my life now, and we could bury the old. Whatever happens, happens. Don't feel bad afterwards.

I gripped Fang's hand tighter, his warmth felt through our layers of bandages. After too many seconds it opened, and there stood my mom. With surprise, I saw grey streaks in her hair and more grooves in her skin.

"We're home." I said.

A/N: There will not be a sequel to this. Since its conception, this has always meant to be a once-off story, and a sequel wouldn't stem naturally from this.

That aside, I'd like to say give my sincerest thanks. To all of you. Thank you for sticking it out right until the end, even if I took ages to update. And thank you so much to my wonderful reviewers – just, wow. You're amazing people. My only request that is if you've read this far, please drop a line one last time. I've put hours upon hours into this story, and final feedback would be wonderful.

Crash has been amazing and to write, and I've learned a lot about the trade. I can only hope that you enjoyed this, too.

All my love and heart, always. xxx