A/N This story is a bit sad but it wouldn't leave me
alone. I hope you like it. If you really like it write one like this,
you know from the point of view of the parents. It makes an interesting fanfic I think personally. Anywho read and enjoy!
Last Goodbye
I was
sitting at the campfire warming my hands when Rachel came over and sat down
next to me. This surprised me because
lately we haven't been getting along well at all. She didn't think that I really grasped the situation here. In
actuality I did. I knew I complained a
lot and caused problems but it was just because I was afraid.
When
Rachel and her friends came to the house, I was terrified for my girls. I didn't understand. Then, in the car as she explained everything
about the war and them fighting it in secret for all these years, I couldn't
believe it. I couldn't believe that
Rachel, my little girl, was a hardened warrior. It explained why she would always come home late tired and
exhausted. It was why she screamed in
her sleep, it was why she had been so distant from me. In realizing this, I was overcome with guilt
and sorrow and pity. Why had this
happened to my Rachel? She didn't
deserve this. I tried to step in and
take away this responsibility off of her shoulders, but I realized that I was
too late. They truth was that I
couldn't do that. She was not a child
anymore. The war had made her grow up,
and it pained me to know that. Her eyes
no longer carried the look of a young and innocent girl; they were of an old
woman's; an old woman that has seen too much.
Tears
sprang into my eyes as this thought passed once again through my mind as it had
so many times since I had come into the Hork-Bajir Valley. I looked over at Rachel. She was staring into the dancing flames of
the fire. I didn't say anything because
when I did she usually got angry or just walked away. I wondered what she wanted.
She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again as if thinking
better of it. She stared into fire a
while longer and then looked at me and said,
"Mom
I . . . I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for not talking to you and I'm
sorry that I couldn't keep you guys safe from all this I,"
"It's
okay honey. Really, you don't have say anything its okay," I interrupted, so
relieved that she was finally talking to me.
Rachel paused for a moment, still looking into the flickering
flames. She took a deep breath and continued
on what she was trying to say,
"I
tried Mom, I really tried to keep you and Jordan and Sara away from all this. I
am so sorry. I don't know what I am
anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I've
turned into some monster. I just don't know.
I'm so scared, so scared. I've
done horrible things and killed so much.
I'm sorry." She finished saying
this in a rush, like she had been wanting to say it aloud for a long time. She sighed and her lip began to tremble as
she covered her face with her hands.
"Oh
sweety it's not your fault. You don't
need to be sorry about anything. It's okay," I said as I wrapped her in a tight
hug. She shuddered in my arms as she
began to cry. To hear those cries of
pain and terror and horror and guilt was agony. I felt tears stream down my cheeks once more. I rocked her back and forth, singing the
lullaby I used when she had nightmares as a little girl. I sat there for a while rocking back and
forth with my little girl in my arms cooing and crying. I felt so sad and angry. Why Rachel why the children?! They had lost so much.
After
a while her sobs ebbed away and she said,
"I
love you mom."
"I
love you to."
She
sat up and uncurled herself and rubbed away the tearstains away from her face
with the sleeve of her sweater. She
stood up and looked at me with pity and sadness not for herself, but for me. She looked like she wanted to tell me
something but couldn't quite get it out.
She spoke but I could tell it wasn't the thing that she had really
wanted to tell me.
"Mom,
you know the next mission we're going on?"
I
nodded slowly. I did not like the
mission Rachel and the others had planned.
It was extremely dangerous. So
dangerous in fact, that one them could easily be killed. But they didn't seem to mind because they have
been doing this for three years. I
still didn't like it.
"I
just wanted to say goodbye before I left."
"Rachel! Could you come over here, I would like a
word," came Jake's voice from one of the look out posts.
"Just
a second Jake!" she hollered back. She
looked back at me.
I
stood and gave her one last hug and said,
"Please
be careful hun."
"I
will. I love you mom," she said quickly
brushing a tear away.
"Love
you too."
She
turned and ran over to Jake. I watched
them talk and saw Rachel put on grim face and nod at whatever Jake was telling
her. For a moment she didn't look like
my daughter at all, she looked like a soldier receiving her next mission
information and grimly accepting them.
Which I guessed, was what she was.
They finished speaking; Jake, Jake the leader of this whole camp, the
leader of the only resistance, the one that carried the weight of Earth and
it's inhabitants survival on his shoulders, a child and yet not a child,
stepped back into the shadows as Rachel morphed into a Bald Eagle and flew
away. As I saw this a wave of fear passed over me raising the hairs on the back
of my neck. I got up, walked over to my
"cabin", and laid down. I didn't know
it then, but that was the last time I would ever see my daughter alive.
1 YEAR LATER
I
sat on the bench that faced the memorial and remembered the day when Jake came
to me told me that Rachel had died.
"Aunt
Naomi?" my nephew said gently tapping my shoulder.
I
turned around and looked into his bloodshot eyes and tear stained face. I knew what was coming.
"I-I'm
sorry, we lost Rachel."
"No,"
I choked and put my hand over my mouth.
I fell to my knees and began to sob.
"I'm
sorry," Jake had said, "we lost Rachel". Those words rang in my head over and
over. A light breeze blew through my
hair and whipped back behind me. I felt
tears well up in my eyes and drip down onto my lap. Why did this happen?! Oh god, why? I sniffed and rubbed my tears away. I once again floated on a river of memory back to Rachel's
memorial.
I sat crying and crying, feeling like I would never
stop throughout the ceremony. At times Jordan would put her small hand on mine
and Sara would hold my arm. Near the
end, a hawk flew down out of the sky and landed on Rachel's urn. A man went to shoo it away but Jake held him
back. The hawk that was Tobias looked
at me and asked,
May
I?
I
nodded and he flew off.
I
felt so awful and so full of grief. How
would I ever get through this pain and grief?
I
was about to cry out when Jordan, who had been holding my and Sara's
hands let go and walked over to the memorial.
She knelt down and placed a single white rose at the foot of it. She then stood and said,
"Bye sis. I
love you," looking at the memorial She
sighed, turned around, and came back to me.
She had a smile on her face as she took my and Sara's hands once
more. Seeing her happy face caused me
to smile for the first time in what seemed like a very long time. Suddenly I knew that I would get through
this. As long as I had Jordan and Sara
I would get through this terrible time.
I gathered Jordan and Sara into a big hug.
"Come on guys, let's go home."
I stood, took one last look at Rachel's memorial
and said goodbye to my little girl one last time. I looked down at Jordan and Sara and smiled once more and said,
"Yeah, let's go."
And I walked hand in hand with them feeling good.
A/A/N
You like? You not like? PLEASE TELL ME!
R/R
