Fic: Breathing Sunshine, Maximum Ride
Title: Breathing Sunshine
Fandom: Maximum Ride
Word Count: 666 (<-- made me laugh.)
When Ella was thirteen, she had two best friends; Missy, who was in the seventh grade, just like her, and Maria, who was an eighth grader and scary in that way eighth graders always seem to seventh graders.
Oh, and a half-sister nobody ever told her about.
But that was okay.
The one thing she never expected was to lose them.
When Ella was thirty, Missy's life had been paved with crack cocaine, ten-dollar blowjobs, and two trick babies, and Maria just became a story she told her son whenever something came up that reminded her of her; most of the time, she couldn't remember what her face looked like.
But she never forgot Maximum Ride.
Irony sucks, doesn't it?
---
She wasn't sure what bothered her more; the fact that her mother had always let her assume it was just them against the world, or that after every nasty shred of dirty laundry had been let flapping in the breeze, that she only talked to Jeb Batchelder, like, twice.
Granted, as she aged and matured (ugh, she hated saying that; what was she, cheese?) Ella understood a little bit. She could congratulate her mother for not being too awkward with him. I mean, what was she going to say? "Hi, I remember you. I used to see you naked and, like, do stuff with you. Is that devilishly incriminating white lab coat new?"
A Christmas card would have been nice. Oh, crap, what was she saying? Jeb wasn't even her father.
(He should have been.)
---
Ella has every reason to be jealous of Max, but she's not.
Maybe it's the test-tube baby thing. What does she have to be jealous of? Ella can't do roundhouse kicks or run a marathon or do anything crazy like break the sound barrier, but she can bake chocolate chip cookies whenever she wants and her name isn't plastered at the top of Itex's Most Wanted list.
Granted, Max got her first kiss at fourteen and Ella had to wait until she was in college, but Ella went to college. Max didn't.
It was all a matter of perspective, really.
---
The ceremony was small and quick, because it was October and the air was nippy, and all the guests who weren't half-avian and therefore superheated were frozen within the hour.
Max went into holy matrimony with Fang the same way she went into anything; mapping escape routes every step of the way.
Ella didn't go. The baby was teething (lame, she knows; but she will hide behind the "I have a baby" excuse for the rest of her life. Funny, the things that come to define you.)
---
At the time, Ella hadn't been thinking about what she was giving up. In fact, if she recalled correctly, she was thinking more about how much her shoes pinched her feet and the baby in her arms was making her funny bone crunch in all the wrong ways. But she smiled, and nodded, and made promises she couldn't even imagine the weight of, because she was just Ella. What earth-shattering decisions has she ever had to make?
And Max smiled, and said thank you, and hugged her in that way that made all of Ella's bones tight and warm, like Christmas.
Then she was gone, leaving her son safe, safe with Ella. Because as much as it killed Maximum Ride to leave a member of the flock behind, even a member small, tiny, with almond-shaped eyes that weren't open all the way and the smallest of wing stubs on his back, Ella was normal.
With any luck, he would be everything Max was not.
--
When Ella was thirteen, her biggest worry was the Christmas Dance, and meanwhile, Maximum Ride saved the world.
When Ella was thirty, Maximum Ride was hiding somewhere in India, and Ella lived an inconspicuous life with a son that wasn't hers and dreaded the day he learned to fly.
Fandom: Maximum Ride
Word Count: 666 (<-- made me laugh.)
When Ella was thirteen, she had two best friends; Missy, who was in the seventh grade, just like her, and Maria, who was an eighth grader and scary in that way eighth graders always seem to seventh graders.
Oh, and a half-sister nobody ever told her about.
But that was okay.
The one thing she never expected was to lose them.
When Ella was thirty, Missy's life had been paved with crack cocaine, ten-dollar blowjobs, and two trick babies, and Maria just became a story she told her son whenever something came up that reminded her of her; most of the time, she couldn't remember what her face looked like.
But she never forgot Maximum Ride.
Irony sucks, doesn't it?
---
She wasn't sure what bothered her more; the fact that her mother had always let her assume it was just them against the world, or that after every nasty shred of dirty laundry had been let flapping in the breeze, that she only talked to Jeb Batchelder, like, twice.
Granted, as she aged and matured (ugh, she hated saying that; what was she, cheese?) Ella understood a little bit. She could congratulate her mother for not being too awkward with him. I mean, what was she going to say? "Hi, I remember you. I used to see you naked and, like, do stuff with you. Is that devilishly incriminating white lab coat new?"
A Christmas card would have been nice. Oh, crap, what was she saying? Jeb wasn't even her father.
(He should have been.)
---
Ella has every reason to be jealous of Max, but she's not.
Maybe it's the test-tube baby thing. What does she have to be jealous of? Ella can't do roundhouse kicks or run a marathon or do anything crazy like break the sound barrier, but she can bake chocolate chip cookies whenever she wants and her name isn't plastered at the top of Itex's Most Wanted list.
Granted, Max got her first kiss at fourteen and Ella had to wait until she was in college, but Ella went to college. Max didn't.
It was all a matter of perspective, really.
---
The ceremony was small and quick, because it was October and the air was nippy, and all the guests who weren't half-avian and therefore superheated were frozen within the hour.
Max went into holy matrimony with Fang the same way she went into anything; mapping escape routes every step of the way.
Ella didn't go. The baby was teething (lame, she knows; but she will hide behind the "I have a baby" excuse for the rest of her life. Funny, the things that come to define you.)
---
At the time, Ella hadn't been thinking about what she was giving up. In fact, if she recalled correctly, she was thinking more about how much her shoes pinched her feet and the baby in her arms was making her funny bone crunch in all the wrong ways. But she smiled, and nodded, and made promises she couldn't even imagine the weight of, because she was just Ella. What earth-shattering decisions has she ever had to make?
And Max smiled, and said thank you, and hugged her in that way that made all of Ella's bones tight and warm, like Christmas.
Then she was gone, leaving her son safe, safe with Ella. Because as much as it killed Maximum Ride to leave a member of the flock behind, even a member small, tiny, with almond-shaped eyes that weren't open all the way and the smallest of wing stubs on his back, Ella was normal.
With any luck, he would be everything Max was not.
--
When Ella was thirteen, her biggest worry was the Christmas Dance, and meanwhile, Maximum Ride saved the world.
When Ella was thirty, Maximum Ride was hiding somewhere in India, and Ella lived an inconspicuous life with a son that wasn't hers and dreaded the day he learned to fly.