Bloodlines
Author's note: I don't own the Animorphs. Also, this is my first try at this type of fic, so I'm not sure how I did. Reviews very much appreciated!
We never should have been friends, I think, as I watch the carefully manicured hand pour wine into two crystal glasses. My hands, in contrast, are callused and scarred and scratched, the product on too many flailing claws and clenching jaws. Where the she tall, I am short. Where I am carefully measured, she is a venerable hurricane. Where she might rip your eyeballs out given the right provocation, I might help you bandage them afterwards. People will look at us and see black and white, but in truth, that is the least of things. Our differences are much more than skin deep. And so, amazingly, is our friendship.
We walk towards the couch. She is leading, and even here, where it doesn't matter at all, I can sense the strength in her stride, as though every fiber of her was built in order to rock the world. She is strong in a way that I cannot even try to touch, in a way that both terrifies me and fascinates me. I'm not meek—I've spent too many hours with my hand down a wolf's throat to merit that descriptor—but my strength is different, quieter, subtle, supple. Hers is vibrant, loud, and unyielding, and neither of us would have it any other way.
She takes a sip of her wine and then smiles at me. "Graduation, huh?"
"Hard to believe it's here," I say, nodding in agreement.
"Yeah. I never really thought I'd be here, especially not after…"
"I know," I say, cutting her off, calmly. It shouldn't be about the war tonight. Of course, it's always about the war, but it shouldn't be, not tonight, anyway. Tonight, we should celebrate. Should. Not that "should" matters for much.
"So, law school?" I say after a moment.
"Yeah. Three more years of tuition with some extra sadism thrown in. I don't know why anything thinks it's a good idea. Including me," she says with a laugh and throws her head back, blonde hair flying. In that moment, it is almost impossible to believe she is mortal.
"Vet school's no better," I commiserate. "Four years of paying to get clawed up in countless varied and creative ways."
"And yet you love it."
"I do."
"Because it would slay you to see a hurt opossum and do nothing to help it?" she says, softly mocking.
"Pretty much," I say, smiling the way you can only with someone who knows you through and through.
"It's hard to believe we'll be leaving," she says, and I understand. This has been an escape for us, a reason to get away from Southern California, with all its memories, with all of its grief. But now it is graduation and the end of the term, and they are leaving and so are we.
"I know. It's been nice to visit," I say, and she nods.
"Nice to get away."
We sit in silence for a few minutes, until she reaches over and opens the photo album. I wince, as does she. She is not sentimental, not in the least, but even she knows that some occasions must be marked.
There are children, blonde and black, growing up before our eyes. School pictures, too perfect to be real, smile back at us. So, too, do candid shots—teetering steps on the balance beam, hands modeled gently around an injured dove, hands clasped together, faces shining with ingrown light. And then there are others, with differences so small you would have to be looking for them to see them—the traces of darkness that dance in their eyes, the rings of fatigue, the lines of faces grown old before their time. Then there are others—a blonde haired girl in a prom dress, beautiful and fierce; the same girl proudly clutching a high school diploma; a young black woman in a wedding dress, fancied up for once in her life; her at a podium, speaking. And then there is nothing.
Slowly, she reaches over to the coffee table and picks up another pile of photographs, ones we do not frame. I move closer, afraid, even though I know what's coming.
A sea side memorial, cast in stone. A family picture with one too few faces. A young woman testifying in court, the citizens of the universe watching her. That same young one, all alone. The last of her kind.
Silently, I feel her begin to shake and sob. Slowly, I take draw her close to me, amazed at the strength that still seems to radiate from her.
We have grown close over the years, the two of us. For a while, it had been the five of us—still was sometimes—but sometimes that is just too hard. Jealousy is strong and so is grief. And so, when it was Jordan's turn to graduate or Cassie's wedding, only the two of us had come.
I don't blame the others—how do you celebrate someone else's child when all you can think of is the fact that you will never celebrate yours? Jean will never hear Jake's name called as he walks proudly across the stage. Eva will never dance with Marco on his wedding day. Loren will never see Tobias' eyes dance as he tells her he will be a father
They will always be parents but now they are parents only in past tense. They are out of milestones.
As I sit here, holding her in my arms, I can see very clearly just how much that has to hurt.
"She would have been so proud of Jordan," I tell Naomi, who is sobbing and yet somehow still fierce, still full of strength.
In that moment, I can see in her mother why my daughter had loved Rachel so much, differences aside. I can only hope she sees the same the same in me.