A/N: This was supposed to be a short two-chapter story about the after effects of the war. Obviously, the war didn't end how it did in the books and… it's not short. It's like 4,000 words long. Oops. But it's completely worth it, trust me. It is still a two-chapter story (bonus points to whoever can figure out what the next chapter's about). Rachel might seem a little out of character for the sole reason that… she's older? On with the show- read, enjoy, review?

Disclaimer: Wish I owned Animorphs but don't- KA does. Poo. Do own the story though, whee!

It was 5:30 A.M. when I rolled over that morning. I could hear Tobias's alarm going off in the next room- that annoying buzz I'd grown used to ever since I found out he liked to sleep in. I didn't really mind. He had school this morning and I… was working at some clerical job in the local hospital. I filed patient charts, chatted with the nurses and generally- did nothing. Some hero.

You're probably wondering what the hell is going on. "What about the Yeerks?" you might be asking yourself. "Why is Tobias not up a tree in a meadow somewhere?" And then, the most important question of all, "Why can you hear his alarm clock through the wall?"

We're not married if that's what you're thinking. He's living in my house- more specifically in Granna's room- and has been ever since the end of the war where he stood as my mother opened the door to find Tobias clutching my bloodied, limping body. That's what they had told me at least when I woke up three days later.

I don't know how Tobias convinced my mother that I couldn't go to a hospital. Probably the same way he convinced her to let him stay by my bedside until I opened my eyes and screamed. Or maybe it was the way I convinced mom to let him stay in Granna's room until "things cooled down a little bit".

We never told her what happened and she never asked. I guess she could see the change. For a while she thought I was pregnant. When that proved an insufficient hypothesis, she moved onto bigger and better things like the one where she thought Tobias was in a gang and I was protecting him from the debt collectors. I had laughed when she told me this and said that Tobias was merely a kid who I've known for a long time and he needed a place to stay.

She knew that something big had gone on with me in the past five years. In fact, today- it would be exactly five years. It was the big "Freedom Day". Five years ago today, five kids and a teenaged alien save the world from total destruction, one died in the fight and the rest . . . went back into hiding. We asked the government to keep our names from the media. They gratefully agreed and have kept our identities safer than any secret in the history of the United States. In fact, I think only the President and then head of the secret service know who we are- they were the only ones allowed in the oval office when we demorphed.

Hunger struck me and I threw on sweats. Slowly I made my way down stairs, careful not to wake up Sarah who had expressed her wish to sleep in today. The kitchen called my name and I was determined to answer it. I grabbed cheerios and an apple. There was already a glass of milk sitting on the table. That too, most unfortunately was calling my name. My mother had had a serious talk with me two weeks ago about the amount of calcium I was getting- none. So, in an effort to prevent me from getting osteoporosis at age thirty, began leaving milk on the table for me to wake up to. Thanks mom.

Half a bowl and two-thirds a glass later, Tobias came sauntering into the kitchen. He grabbed the box of Lucky Charms and poured milk up to the top of the bowl- he never had a problem with calcium intake. Plopping down in front of me, he grabbed the spoon and began devouring it. He shoved spoon after spoon into his mouth and reached for my glass to gulp down even more milk.

"You make me sick," I said and his face lit up in a smile.

You think you know someone well enough. You think that since you see them every day, you can't hate them or love them anymore. It's so wrong. Every time I see Tobias's smile, I fall a little bit more in love with him. It's really scary when you think about it, the fact that someone can literally hold your heart in his hand.

"Want to pick me up today? It's a half day with the . . . holiday and all. We could go out for lunch or something." He polished off his bowl with my apple.

"I can't. I have to work all day today. My manager's already pissed that I missed work the other day. You would think that by working at a hospital, they understand the meaning of being 'sick'." He nodded and tried not to look crestfallen. I empathized. Today wasn't exactly a day I wanted to spend without him. It meant a whole nine hours of listening to people say, "I can't believe they haven't been discovered yet" and "Thirteen- I can't imagine. When I look at my little –insert name here-'s face, I can't believe a child could do the things they did. They're heroes."

Tobias, as if knowing exactly what I was thinking, reached over and grabbed my hand. He ran his fingers up and down my wrist. Instantly, I felt better. If he had died that day. . . I shuddered. I couldn't look back. I could only stand up and collapse into his lap. He knew. He knew exactly what I was remembering and he hated himself for not being able to rip it from my head. It was the one memory that could turn me into a sobbing, weak mess on the inside, and a Rachel half than normal on the outside. A Rachel that with a trained eye, would reveal the turmoil going on inside me.

I couldn't save him.

".. . We know that there were two Heroes in the room when the leader was executed. Both were female according to accounts. Each tried to get to the Visser who held the gun to the leader's head before it was too late but both failed. The leader sustained six shots to the head before then human controller Michael Bordshev declared him dead. The remaining Heroes, all thought to be males, entered the room just after-"

"Turn that off Jordan," Tobias said as she walked into the room.

Too late. I'd heard. Suddenly aware of my position on Tobias within Jordan's eyesight- a strict violation of Mom's rules- I hopped off. Jordan, at age eighteen, the same age Tobias was supposed to be, had long had her suspicions about the two of us. I never cared to suppress them. Even weirder than the fact that my sister was the same age as my boyfriend was the fact that they went to the same school and were even in the same French class.

"I'm going for a run." I said, breaking the sudden silence.

Tobias, suddenly aware of what that meant asked, "Are you ok?"

I nodded and brushed hair from my eyes. Strong, butt-kicking Rachel still lives.

"You can go ahead and leave Jordan; I'll make sure that Sarah gets on the bus. See you both later tonight." And I was out the door and gone.

Ever since the end of the war, I'd needed an outlet to take out my aggression. For a while it was Tobias. I was angry at him for dragging me away from the fight, angry at him for not letting me get Jake's body and just angry in general. I missed feeling like I was doing something important. He was just there and I couldn't stop myself. He understood and he put up with it- he didn't know what else to do. And he couldn't leave me, he was worried about me.

It was my mother who sent me to therapy for it. "I don't know what's going on, but you need help." After a long talk about it to Tobias, he went with me and we had a mini-therapy session. I couldn't explain why I was so angry and Tobias never said a word. That's when the therapist suggested going for a daily run. It proved a good compromise and I started running whenever I felt weak or got mad at Tobias. Within the year, I was up to eight miles a day. On the really bad days, I could do fifteen miles before I had to stop out of exhaustion.

This particular day I ran three miles. I could only go so far. My mind was racing with nothing else to focus on. I tried counting steps, tried thinking of a new filing system for the back room at work, I even tried to think of what I could cook for dinner tonight- nothing worked. My thoughts kept returning to that day. The faces, the sounds, even the smells infiltrated my run and I couldn't concentrate. It was when I actually saw it, the execution and Cassie's look afterward that I turned around and began to walk home.

Cassie. It'd been five years and we didn't know where she was. Last time anyone saw her was at the memorial service. She ran off after that. Marco thinks she went to the east coast. To get away from it all, he had said right before he followed her. Tobias thought Jake had asked him to look after her right before… he remembered Marco stopping in mid-sentence and collapse after.

I missed them both.

The home was empty when I got there. I'd taken too long on the run and Sarah had already gotten off to middle school. At least I hoped. It was seven thirty. I had another hour and a half before I had to be at the hospital. I showered, changed and sat down in front of the TV, hoping to get a few minutes of morning talk shows in before I left for the day.

Channel 04- good old Good Morning America. Charles Gibson was looking intently at the expert, preparing to grill him about whatever he felt obliged to inform the nation of today.

"Why do you think they've remained anonymous? Are they alive?"

Shit, of course they would be talking about this. It's the fifth anniversary- what else would Charles Gibson be interested in talk about?

"Oh of course they're alive," the expert- who apparently was a former controller who'd been in the control room at the time- "If you think about it, they're being incredibly smart staying under wraps. These are kids who spent their entire childhood looking at their parents at dinner and thinking 'I could be dead before you wake up' and then leave to fight a battle worse than anything any soldier's been in. They've had legs chopped off, their intestines sprayed all over the floor-"

"Ok, that was once." I informed the expert.

"They just want to lead a normal life. Some of them might even have kids by now. They're about their early twenties- at least that is what we've hypothesized."

Kids- ha- like I could raise kids in this state of mind.

Goodbye Good Morning America. It's time for work.

I drove to work and managed to punch in on time for once. The files weren't that bad, mostly went in the ER section of the Medical Records room. It was solitary work. Normally I enjoyed it but now, left alone with my thoughts, it sucked.

"Rachel," My boss, a medical school drop out, appeared behind me. "I need you to pull these records off the shelf. I know it'll probably take a while and I know I'm asking a lot of you considering it's a holiday and all but this has got to be done before tomorrow. The Brown party's going to slam the hospital with a lawsuit we have to be ready for." He paused and looked at me for a moment. I knew what was coming; he'd been expressing interest in me for quite a while. Any other twenty-two year old would bow down to him. He was cute, young (late twenties) and successful- he did control the entire Medical Records section of the hospital. Of course, it's safe to say I wasn't any old twenty-two year old. I had an eighteen year old boyfriend after all. "You know, if you want me to stay and help, we could make a night out of it. Order in Chinese, listen to crappy music, swap stories about where we were when we first heard aliens had tried to take over the Earth and five teenagers controlled our fate."

At the last words, I turned a bit hostile. Making a joke out of that was a little low just to get a date out of me.

"I don't think so," I said, a little harsher than I meant to.

"Ah, ok. I can take a hint." He plopped the stack of medical numbers on the table next to me. "Well, I'll still order you Chinese in case you get hungry. Egg drop soup right?"

I nodded and he left. I looked at my watch- four thirty. Way past the time I'd told Tobias I'd be home. This stack would probably add another three hours. I'd better be getting overtime for this.

By the time I'd pulled the last Brown record from the shelf, it was eight o'clock and I really needed a run. I couldn't get out of the hospital fast enough and nearly ran over a volunteer escorting an extremely anesthetized patient to their ride. It was only after I got in the car that I realized I'd left the dinner on the table completely untouched. It would probably offend my boss once he got there the next morning but I frankly didn't care.

I wanted to go home.

The deafening silence led me to seek solace in the radio. Oops. It was like the day that kept stewing until I finally threw myself into the pot of boiling water.

"Anyone who was a former controller or thinks they have any inside info they can give us, give us a call. We're talking about the Heroes- where they are now, how they got the power to morph, anything. Caller on line one, go ahead."

"Hi, is this me?"

"Yep, go ahead."

I turned left, and went past the mall. The Yeerk Pool had been underneath it, it was there that we'd had our first experience. It was there Tobias had been trapped in what I'd thought then as a hawk for forever.

"Yea, I was there when the leader got executed. It was intense. The two, well I guess they were the girls, they were in a grizzly bear and a wolf morph and they were just ripping into the Hork Bajir the Visser kept sending out and . . ."

There was the school, where I'd been sitting just moments before the Controllers burst in and rounded up all the kids. They knew we were kids… we were just kids.

"But anyway, all the sudden, the Visser got a hold of the leader and held the gun to his head. The two girls turned and one of them cried out- it was kinda like a scream that you didn't hear but could hear. They told me it was called thought speak. . ."

There was the stop light where if I only turned right and drove a few miles I could end up at the (still free) Hork Bajir valley. I kept driving straight.

"The bear tried to get to him, she tried to like kick the gun from the Visser's hand I guess- she really should've known it would've been too late- but anyway, she tried to get there-"

I turned into the neighborhood.

Turn the channel Rachel, turn the channel. You know what happens next, you know the story. Change the channel.

But I didn't.

"They blew his brains out. Blood and gore was everywhere. It was so gross- even my controller was repulsed. And then the Hero just fell in his tiger morph. I kinda felt bad for him, he didn't even get to die human. I guess he wanted to help keep the others' identities secret or something but anyway. There was so much blood. I couldn't believe the blood and the stench. The other two were just screaming and suddenly the other Heroes walked in . . ."

Home. I threw open the door so hard I forgot to take the keys out of the ignition. It was still on when I ran into the house and threw open the door.

"Rachel what's wrong?" My mom asked me as I darted for the stairs. In fact, she practically screamed. I didn't blame her; she'd never seen me as upset as I was now.

I never really let it all out before. The pressure of being "Let's do it" Rachel, the one who never, ever showed weakness and who always wanted to be in the war in the first place, got to me.

I needed him.

He was sprawled out on his bed, listening to music and doing his homework. If I had been saner I would've saw the irony in that. He saw me out of the corner of his eye and took in the state of me. I was on the verge of a breakdown. Rolling over, he pulled the earphones out of his ears. It was the only invitation I needed. I walked to the bed and slipped between his legs. My head found a spot on top of his chest and I buried myself in his arms.

The tears came in dry sobs. I couldn't even cry for Jake the right way. Tobias held me tighter and ran his fingers under my shirt, resting his fingers on my pulse point. He traced my spine up and down and I, for some weird reason, began to breathe. The rising and falling of his chest kept reminding me that he was alive, that I at least saved someone. That didn't stop me from my agony. I screamed into his chest. He just told me that everything was going to be ok.

Through half open eyes, I saw my mom in the doorway. She took in the scene with a relative calm that I'd never seen, especially considering the fact that I was lying in an extremely close proximity to a boy on his bed. She made a move towards us and sat at the head of the bed next to Tobias. I could smell her perfume mixed with Tobias'.

She took a deep breath and then said it. Her voice was low and haunting, "You two were Heroes weren't you."

It was as if the world had suddenly stopped and all that existed was that bed and the three of us on it. I choked on yet another sob and saw Tobias close his eyes in defeat. It was all the confirmation she needed.

The burden of hiding it from my mom was suddenly gone and I could be her normal child again- or as normal as I could be after that. So many years, so many miles I had to jog just to protect the truth from her and now it was out. I cried harder just from relief.

She reached over to touch my face. She wiped the spot where tears would be if I could still cry.

"My poor baby," she was crying now. I envied her; at least her tears were real. Then, in a move I will never forget, she reached up and kissed Tobias, then me. "I'm so sorry," she said, "so sorry."

I don't know how long we stayed like that. I woke up next to Tobias, covered by a sheet and wearing shoes. I was still exhausted yet extremely thirsty. Careful not to wake him, I rolled over and headed down to the kitchen.

Surprisingly, the glow from the family room caught my attention. My mother was sitting in front of a muted TV. I walked towards her and her head snapped around.

"Oh, Rachel. You scared me."

"Sorry," I said, "What are you watching?"

She quickly turned the channel. "Nothing- just something on home gardening."

The TV showed nothing of the sort, it was an infomercial. I picked up the remote and pressed the previous channel button. Images of fights and blood filled the screen. It was a result of a camera that'd been snuck in by a resistance Yeerk. Someone had sold it to the station and they were playing all the clips of it.

Stunned, I backed up and sat on the couch. I didn't have to have sound- I remembered every fight they were showing. In fact, there I was- me and the grizzly, pounding some Taxxon over the head like they were silly putty, which to me, back then, they probably were.

"That's you?" My mom asked. I nodded, suddenly ashamed to admit it.

"Tobias is behind me in the hawk morph." My mother pursed her lips in a sign of recognition.

"I should've known," she said.

"You couldn't have." I replied.

Then- a tiger leapt on the screen. The magnificent animal pounced on the Hork Bajir that was attempting to attack a wolf.

"Oh God," It escaped my lips before I could stop it. Suddenly, tears fell down my cheeks in unabashed rivers. There he was. For the first time in five years, he was alive and fighting. Exactly how I left him. "Jake."

My mother understood.

A noise behind me and soon Tobias was behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders. He watched the TV with the hawk like stare I'd thought had left him. The room was quiet, like a tomb.

The clip ended and another battle where we all lived was finished.

"Come on honey," Tobias said, pulling me arm, "You gotta get some sleep."

My mother startled at the title, suddenly realizing that our relationship went deeper than your typical boyfriend-girlfriend status. And later I would yell at him for using a name like that to refer to me but after my run, I'd forgive him and understand his concern.

He led me to his room and curled up next to me.

"Tobias," I asked into the darkness.

"Hm?"

"I love you." It was the first time in a long time I had said it and it didn't go unnoticed. He pulled me closer to him.

"I love you too."

I felt asleep with his lips touching my temple, finally happy to let someone else be the brave one for once. I needed to be held and I was tired of being the old Rachel.

My mother remained on the couch, killing herself for not seeing what was going on with her daughter- not like she ever could have.