A/N: I don't own Animorphs-they're the property of KAA and Scholastic. Please don't me, as I am a poor librarian who can barely afford health insurance and to support my cat in the manner in which she's accustomed.

A/N #2: If you haven't read "The Alliance" first, it may help to do so. This is the same general story, but from Tom's point of view.

Finally, a huge "Thank you" to YPM-33-KI for beta reading!

There are few scenarios in which waking up tied to a chair in the middle of a shack can be construed as a good thing.

My first reaction, when Gariss Four-Two-One woke up to that exact situation, was a small feeling of smugness that he was nearly as powerless as I had been since my initial infestation with Temrash Two-Five-Two.

That had been over two years ago.

Temrash was gone now. He was supposed to receive this big promotion, infest the governor. From the time he found out to the day he left my head, he barely stopped gloating about it. When I first heard about his promotion, I felt a sense of hope, because I'd thought that I'd be freed.

My Yeerk had been quick, eager even, to crush that hope.

(You'll just go to a low level Yeerk,) he'd told me.

At the time, I'd been too beaten, too broken down, to retort that this only made him a notch above a low level Yeerk. After all, it had taken him nearly nine months of living inside my head before he'd received this promotion.

After learning that I would just be passed on to another Yeerk, I thought that maybe, this new Yeerk wouldn't be so eager to get Jake to join The Sharing. During the last few weeks, Temrash hadn't let up on it, and finally Jake had snapped and said that he didn't want to be a part of something, he'd wanted to be himself.

Almost like he knew, not about the Yeerks, but that it was basically a cult.

Anyway, Temrash had gone to his promotion, and I later discovered that he'd been killed waiting for the governor. The Andalite bandits had attacked the hospital and destroyed the pool full of Yeerks before any of the Controllers could stop them.

Temrash had died waiting for his big assignment, probably not even knowing what had happened.

A couple days later, a mysterious voice called our home, telling me not to give up.

The two events kept me from giving up completely for at least a few months.

Two years after my initial infestation, hope wasn't easy to come by. Sure, the Andalite bandits continued their attacks on the Yeerk empire, but for those of us still enslaved to them, it felt like a distant hope. Maybe more Andalites would come and kill the Yeerks. Probably not.

The latest attack, which had only occurred a few days ago, had been on the Yeerk Pool. But it wasn't their usual attack. For one thing, it seemed like there had only been one bandit. For another, the key purpose of the attack, from what I'd heard in the cages, was to rescue a single Yeerk.

Aftran Nine-Four-Two. Called a traitor by Visser Three, because apparently she had let her human host go. Apparently, she was a key part in this movement of Yeerks who wanted to abolish forced infestation. Only take the ones who agreed to have a Yeerk in them, and let everyone else go free. Maybe even abolish the empire.

I'd never known Andalites and Yeerks to work together, but maybe the bandits thought that an end to forced infestation was a good beginning to an end to all infestation. Or, maybe they were willing to compromise. I didn't know what they were thinking when they saved her.

Anyway, they got her out. And just her. Visser Three was seriously ticked off, and more than a few of his guards were fed to the Taxxons. No humans, because it would look too suspicious. But I imagined that a couple lost an arm or two.

No wonder the Peace Movement wanted to abolish the empire.

Anyway.

I woke up, imprisoned in my mind as usual, but Gariss woke up, literally imprisoned.

He searched through my memories to figure out what was going on...and then he saw my kid brother.

Midget.

I could have cried. Early in my infestation, I'd fantasied about my parents freeing me. Holding me captive, because they knew something was off. Waking up to find them say that they knew all about the Yeerks, and they wouldn't rest until I was freed.

Temrash had mocked me. And when enough days passed and this fantasy never became more than just that, I pushed it away from my thoughts. As much as I hated Temrash, he had been right about one thing.

No one knew that I was a prisoner in my mind, and no one was going to try to save me.

Except, looking into the eyes of my kid brother and his friend, I realized that they were doing just that.

Finally.

I did the math. Gariss had fed on Wednesday evening. The longest he could possibly last was Saturday night. But the hunger would begin on Saturday. If not in the morning, definitely by the middle of the day. He didn't like to go longer than sixty hours without feeding. No more than sixty-five, tops. My Yeerks had never explained it to me, exactly, but I knew that seventy-two hours was the absolute maximum time a Yeerk could go without Kandrona rays. As in, they would die by the end of the seventy-second hour.

Gariss would be feeling hunger before too long, and facing starvation not long after that.

I didn't gloat. I didn't even hope. Well, not much. When you've been a slave inside your body for over two years, even when you think you can smell freedom, it doesn't take long to figure out that even that seeming certainty could just be a mirage.

Even with Jake and Marco telling Gariss to shut up, that they knew all about Yeerks, I felt that there was so much that could go wrong.

Except, it didn't. Oh, Gariss made a big stink, screaming for help, giving me a sore throat, but eventually, he stopped that.

Maybe he would have tried harder had they not said something about there being another option beyond starving.

He didn't ask what it was until hunger had really started to set in. Even when he learned about the android and the Yeerk inside of him who was living on his generated Kandrona rays, he didn't agree right away. But he did about a half hour later.

He was too weak to think of a better plan, and even if it was a trick, there was the chance that he wouldn't starve.

Yeerks tended to give up when they felt like the odds were against them.

Maybe it was some kind of evolution that humans missed out on. They wouldn't fight when it was hopeless. They figured others would continue it, and it was better to preserve their own lives.

Even as Gariss left my head, I still couldn't believe what was happening. It felt so unreal, and suddenly, I was sobbing. Yeah, Tom Berenson, former high school basketball star and generally popular guy. Crying like a baby.

Well, anyone who had been infested with two awful Yeerks for over two years would know how I felt. And those who didn't-could shut up.

My eyes fixed on the Yeerk. I heard Jake ask if I wanted to kill it. I couldn't answer. So, the Yeerk was allowed to climb into the android, where he'd be permanently trapped in wiring, but able to live on the android's generated Kandrona rays.

And me. I was free. Actually, truly free. Not just without a Yeerk for a couple of hours and dragged off to a cage while the slug fed. No, this slug wasn't coming back.

Jake and Marco had saved me.

They untied me, and I was able to stand up. I suddenly grabbed Jake and pulled him into a huge hug. I worried dimly if I was choking him, hugging him so hard, but he just squeezed back, at least as hard.

"Thank you!" I managed to get out. My voice wasn't working well. Was it because of Gariss spending so much time screaming, or because, like the rest of my body, it didn't feel like it belonged to me? "Oh God...thank you!"

A small part of me was telling me to be strong, to stop crying, to man up.

I told that part of me to go to hell.

I wanted to stay close to Midget, stay hugging him for dear life, for at least another hour. But I finally let go, partly because I could tell others were watching, and partly because I realized that I was weak from not having eaten for nearly twenty-four hours.

Midget was crying, too.

"Jake? Can we go home?" I asked him.

I was too surprised that I could talk on my own, without being in one of the cages, to give much notice to the fact that my voice sounded so young.

I guessed that being a slave to a Yeerk for two years changes you, ages you. Even if your body doesn't notice the difference.

I noted that Jake looked exhausted. He tried to smile at me.

"Let's sit down, Tom," he said, putting an arm on my shoulder. Acting like the older brother, even though that had always been my job. "We need to talk about what happens next."

I felt panic sink in as he said this. It wasn't over, yet. And maybe-as much as I hated to think it-Jake wasn't even on my side.

I considered trying to bolt, but my legs wouldn't move.

A/N: If you've read this far, please take a few minutes to leave your feedback. I can't tell you how much I appreciate hearing from readers!