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That moment, with Luna's light touch against her face and her bright eyes staring into Max, the incident that changed their dynamic forever.
It had taken about a week after (the incident) before Max decided that she was interested-interested in the mysterious girl.
It took another two days after that for Max to realize she had no idea at all how to proceed.
After all, knowing how she felt for the other girl and knowing how to start a relationship (or whatever it was normal people did) were totally different issues.
Despite her uncertainty, Max had been back to Luna's place everyday since the incident; after all, Maximum ride wasn't a coward.
Max didn't run from scientists, erasers, assassins or evil clones, so she was not about to become a Hallmark-original-movie-cliche and attempt to run from her own goddamn feelings.
But courage didn't make Max any smoother with relationships. She would almost say that her abrasive, blunt, take-no-prisoners attitude, which had saved countless lives in the past, wasn't exactly suited to trying to woo a potential partner.
And she wanted Luna.
Max couldn't think of another time she had felt so connected to another person as she had that moment with Luna; their foreheads pressed gently together and breaths intermingling.
Max could have lived forever in the space of that moment: at peace, feeling whole and stable. Like she could be that happy and carefree all the time, like she didn't have to constantly watch over her shoulder and wait for the other shoe to drop.
So she kept coming back and exactly eight days after the incident Max was seated in her chair (Luna's words not hers and she tried to ignore how having a defined space at the other girls house made her stomach buzz) and she was still pretty much dumb struck on where to go from here.
Did Luna even like girls? After all, Max had never thought she could feel this way about the fairer sex until very recently.
Perhaps Luna was just very kind and compassionate.
Maybe she was already married and her spouse was away on business or something.
Max glanced hastily at the other girls fingers as they lightly held a tea cup. No ring. But then again, the other girl was quite eccentric, perhaps she had forgone the traditional matrimonial ring, it didn't necessarily mean she was single.
Max decided that was step one: find out if she even had a sliver of a hope.
"Do you ever get lonely here Luna?"
Max's question cut through the quiet tranquility of the room. Luna didn't react at first, taking a long, slow sip of her tea before placing her cup down delicately on the small round table between them.
Luna looked up at her and gave her a small fragile smile.
"Not so much now that you come, Max. I've much enjoyed your visits you know".
Max felt traitorous blood rise to her cheeks. But she did know, on some level, she knew Luna liked having her around. After all, the other girl wouldn't keep inviting her and treating her to all the tea and cookies she wanted if she didn't like Max's company.
But Max was fishing beyond that.
Max smiled back and said, "I've really enjoyed being here with you too. I just noticed that I haven't seen any other people around."
Max took a deep breath, calming herself before continuing.
"I know since your parents passed you've taken over the family house and business, it's just that you live out here and it seems so isolated. I'm just wondering if you have other people you talk to, that come and visit too."
Max hoped she hadn't offended the other girl. Luna had proved herself extremely perceptive in the short time Max had known her. Max hoped the other girl could read between the lines, understand the question Max was still to afraid to verbalize.
Luna looked at her carefully and Max held very still.
"Once upon a time perhaps. My friends from school, we were all very close but times change. But now they are all paired off with families of their own, so they don't come by as much as before".
Luna took a small sip of tea and continued, "I had a lover too, before. But I couldn't be sure if the relationship was true, or if it was formed by the terror of the times. But now, now I think I did love him, but I don't think I was as in love with him as I wanted".
Max listened with rapt attention. This was the most Luna had ever discussed her past. Max knew there was some traumatizing event that had occurred during Luna's last years of school; something about a politician who amassed a following of racists and performed acts of terrorism... or something along those lines. Max knew Luna's school and friends had been in the middle of the whole thing, but that was all she could deduce from the vague mentions Luna dropped occasionally.
"He was a beautiful warrior and a strong man. His eyes were clear and he was honest. Neville would have cared for me forever if I let him, but that's why I had to let him go".
Luna shifted in her seat, pulling her long slender legs up and under herself. She leaned against the arm rest and looked around the room, perhaps caught in the memories of her time with her past relationship.
"The war stole the youth from our hearts. We could never get those times back, but so many of us didn't understand how to move beyond. The void of space, between boy and man, girl and woman, child and adult, soldier and civilian. We were all human but it was hard, too hard, to remember that."
Luna's gaze landed on the small window in the corner of the room that overlooked her garden. Where she and Max had first met.
"We were a group, formed in necessity of survival and devotion to one another. In battle it was advantages but after, it was difficult to remember my own identity. I knew that I couldn't be happy like that. So I left, I chose to live here. My youth was lost but I knew in time I could reconnect with myself again. And Neville..."
She paused.
"Part of me will always love him for the part he played in my life. For his strength and loyalty. But I knew that we weren't meant to be forever. We were a couple bore of suffering and convenience. Being together helped us survive, but neither of us could truly be alive if we had continued trying to stay in those times."
Luna stopped and curled into herself a bit more, still gazing out the window.
Max swallows. She knows this feeling intimately, it reminds her of the time she spent believing Fang would be her forever love. The thought had comforted her, gave her hope when she was tired of running and fighting and starving. Everyone needed something or someone to make them get up in the morning. She couldn't blame Luna for wanting stability during her trying times as well.
Max knew the topic was painful for Luna, but she needed to be sure, so she asked; "And now? Do you think one day, when you have both healed, that you could go back to how it was before".
Suddenly Luna's full gaze was turned on her, and Max felt herself sit up straight at the sudden attention when the other girl had been so studiously avoiding looking at her up until now.
Luna paused, opened her mouth, closed it. She looked at Max, sitting nervously across from her, trying not to show her feelings on her sleeves.
Luna's heart melted a bit. She knew the other girl wasn't nosing for information or trying to make her dig up her demons for no reason. Max looked as vulnerable probing for answers as Luna felt answering her questions. But Luna had faith, that's what kept her sane during the war (no matter what her peers had assumed). It's what Luna clung to even more than her relationships with Neville or her friends.
Luna knew that something great would come along if she was patient.
Looking straight ahead at the other girl Luna replied. "No. A person cannot recapture the past. The only thing to do is move towards the future. Neville will be special to me and always a dear friend, but the stars don't align for us in that way and they never will again".
Luna continued after a beat.
"One day we will both find our happiness with other people and I wish him all the luck".
Luna smiled before excusing herself to put another kettle on. That was the truth and it was all she had to say on the matter.
When Luna came back with another pot of tea the girls stayed on safer topics. Luna felt tired reliving her emotions from long ago. Although the sting was gone, there were still phantom pains of loss. As though she had lost a hand; the physical ache long gone but the urge to flex her fingers and being unable to still catching her off guard from time to time. Luna knew the other girl was here for a reason, every part of her tingled and thrived in the faith she had that Max was special: that Max was the one she had been waiting for.
But Luna could wait a bit longer. Max had made the first move and so she would let the other girl gather her courage and decide what she wanted.
Max made her goodbyes and flew off towards her home.
Luna looked down at her cup, her tea leaves congregating on the bottom of the cup. The image was still blurry but a pair of small black wings could be made out by a skilled reader like Luna.
Because Luna had faith, so she would be patient.