Disclaimer: I don't own Animorphs. They're owned by KAA and Scholastic. Although I do not own the Yeerk Tarash 514, I would like to be notified if you choose to use her as a character in a fanfic. Likewise, Emily is a version of myself, and Amy and Susan are based on real people who are used with their expressed permission. Please don't sue-I am a poor librarian and am still living with my parents.

Other stuff:

This story is MOSTLY consistent with Animorphs canon, except when otherwise noted. It takes place one year before my fic "What is Sleep?"

I have made various revisions on this story since I initially published it. The changes are minor with regards to plot, but I hope that they have improved the overall quality of the fic.

Now, onto the story…

The Adjustments

My name is Emily. I am one of the many Controllers who are keeping a relatively low profile on earth, but I expect this to change shortly.

I became a voluntary Controller in my first year of high school. I heard about the Yeerks because I had joined the Sharing. It seemed like a good way to get community service credit for colleges, and I didn't want to be one of those people who started doing volunteer activities during their junior year so that they could count it on their college application.

Besides, I was Catholic, so I was supposed to do good deeds on a regular basis. Love your neighbor and all of that.

Anyway, I was infested near the beginning of ninth grade, and I quickly learned that contrary to the propaganda the Animorphs books spewed-which had been published after the end of the war-most of the Yeerks who control humans aren't sadistic. Not that they are all members of the Peace Movement. Much like humans, there are some good Yeerks and some bad ones.

Most of the Yeerks consider themselves to fit in the middle, but the truth was that they edged towards "good". Few Yeerks liked to see anyone suffer, especially their own host.

My first Yeerk was a new member to the Peace Movement. My second Yeerk was the founder of the Peace Movement.

Her name is Tarash 514 and her rank is Visser Five. It may seem contradictory for the founder of the Peace Movement to be a visser. But Tarash knew that she needed to hold a high rank in order to evoke change within the Yeerk mentality. Even if it was through subtle measures.

To her fellow Yeerks-the ones who did not believe that their hosts were sentient and thought that they could silence or even torture them without repercussions-she could be unpleasant. There are rumors that this Yeerk is cruel and ruthless, but she's only that way towards those Yeerks. Towards hosts like me, she couldn't be kinder.

For example, she would often try and set involuntary hosts free by stunning the host when the Yeerk had broken some rule or otherwise displeased her, but make it appear as though the Dracon beam was on a much higher setting than it was. I don't know where she kept these freed hosts, but I expect that they were infested with nicer Yeerks and moved to another division.

Yeerks aren't the best at recognizing similar host bodies.

From the beginning of our time together, I viewed Tarash was like a combination of an older sister and a mom. She was kind to me, sympathetic, and cared about me as a person. She paid attention to my thoughts, but didn't go digging around in my memory unless I was truly upset about something. She had a good sense of humor and was someone who I could confide in and would have been friends with had she been another person.

Even so, living with another creature inside of you can be hard even under the best of circumstances. We were two very different beings and we were trying to live two different lives while putting on the appearance that we were living a completely separate life than that which we were living.

If that sounds confusing, that's because it is.

After the war was over, Tarash stayed inside of me, but I kept our partnership quiet. I did not want to be judged for my decision to allow a Yeerk inside my head. Immediately after the war, there were a great many people who believed that the only good Yeerk was either dead or trapped as a nothlit. There were a relatively large number of humans who wanted to stay with our Yeerks, and although the government did not condemn this course of action, society did.

That makes it even harder to Tarash and I to make it seem as though we're living a normal life.

I am writing my story in hopes of establishing a better understanding between Yeerks and humans. More than that, I want the Yeerks to secure rights from the government. Even those who became human nothlits receive abuse from other humans. Some have even been killed. Tarash believes that people will respect all decent Yeerks, but that it will take time. I am less patient.

I am beginning my story with my freshman year in college, but it is not always linear. I think it is better this way. Memories are like that, appearing in the middle of our daily life. Events are linear, but we still think about them years afterward. So it will be here.

One aspect of college that concerned me was living with a complete stranger. You would think that, after living with an alien in my head for an extended period of time, living with a roommate at college would be nothing. After all, if you can share your brain with someone, surely you can share one small room with another person who doesn't even know what you're thinking at any given moment, much less have control over your body.

I will freely admit that having Tarash inside of me probably made it easier for me to adapt to college life than someone who had never known the Yeerks. I also lucked out in being assigned a nice roommate.

Still, there is a huge difference between sharing a mind with someone and sharing a messy room with someone.

I found out in early August that my roommate was going to be some girl named Amy Rosenberg and that I would be living in the all girls' dorm, which had been my first choice.

There were two other freshmen dorms. One had air conditioning and small rooms. The other had no air conditioning and tiny rooms. And yes, there were actually people who chose the dorm with tiny rooms and no air conditioning as their first choice.

The information on my roommate paper gave me Amy's name, address, and home phone number. I checked the address online and discovered that she lived a couple of hours away.

After not hearing from her for a few days, Tarash and I decided to initiate contact. Partly because I was interested in finding out what my roommate would be like and who would need to bring what. Also partly because Tarash would not stop pestering me to call her. She was as excited as I was.

We should get a triple, I remarked. There are going to be three of us living together.

Tarash laughed.

My parents were happy that I would be making the first move, and I practically had to shoo them out of the room after dinner two weeks before classes would begin and dialed the number.

After the third ring, someone picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

As usual, I became nervous. "Hi, this is Emily. Is Amy there? I'll be her roommate this year."

"Amy! Telephone!" screamed the speaker.

As I waited, Tarash reassured me that everything would be fine.

Just don't forget to stand up for yourself. Don't let your roommate push you around. Half of the room is yours, after all.

You know that's easier said than done.

I'll be there to help you, Tarash promised.

"Hello?" Amy had gotten on the line.

"Hi, my name is Emily. I'm going to be your roommate next year. I mean, this year."

"Oh, yeah, hey!" Amy sounded chipper. "Could you hold on a second…? My family's making a lot of noise."

After a few seconds, there was no more noise in the background.

"Sorry about that," Amy apologized, laughing a little. "So, you're Emily."

"Yes," I replied, for lack of nothing better to say. "Hi."

"Hi."

Ask her what her major is, Tarash prodded.

"Um, what's your major?"

"I'm not sure. I think maybe English? What about you?"

"English, and I might do elementary education. I'm signed up for the first Education class already," I replied.

"Yeah, I teach Hebrew school. It can be fun, but also a little crazy."

I nodded, which was pointless because Amy could not see me, and then replied, "Oh." At Tarash's nagging, I asked, "Are you going to get involved in hillel?"

Hillel was the Jewish group on campus. I would be joining the Newman Center because I was Catholic. Probably more so than the rest of my family, even though we all went to Mass every week.

"Well, I'm Catholic," I explained. "So no. But I want to get involved in the Newman Center on campus."

That's good, let her know that your faith is important to you, since she brought it up, Tarash encouraged.

"Right, that makes sense," Amy agreed. There was another pause and then she said, "So...I guess we should figure out who needs to bring what."

"I remember reading that the school lets us rent a fridge/freezer. I think that comes with a microwave?"

"Yeah, it does," Amy confirmed. "How about I put in an order for that, and you can pay for half after we move in?"

"Sure. Cash okay?"

"Or check. Whichever works." She paused, and then added, "Are you going to bring a TV?"

"My mom won't let me. She thinks it's a bad idea. What about you?"

"Same here," Amy laughed. "But there's one in the lounge, so we won't be totally deprived."

"Do the doors have mirrors?" I wondered, partly to myself and partly out loud. "One of us should bring one of those."

"They probably have mirrors but no full length mirror," Amy considered. "So yeah...that can be kind of useful to have."

"I'll bring the full length mirror. We can probably find one at one of those stores that sells college stuff," I volunteered.

"That works. Are you going to bring any furniture? I have a blue fold out chair."

"I have something like that in red."

"I know we're in the basement, but I don't remember what those rooms look like," Amy replied. "We can put them in the room once we see what everything looks like. By the way, we should exchange emails."

We spent the next minute doing that.

"Okay, and if we think of anything else to bring, we can email each other."

"Yeah, now we have to ask each other the tough questions," Amy laughed.

"Oh, goody. Mind if I go first?"

"Go ahead."

"Are you neat or messy?"

"I'm a complete and total slob," she confessed.

"I can be messy, but I try to keep my stuff so I can find what I need."

"Do you listen to loud music while you study?"

"No, then I can't concentrate," I admitted.

"Good. Same here."

"Do you go to bed early?"

Amy laughed. "I'm lucky if I get five hours of sleep on a weekend. I'm addicted to caffeine and pull all nighters on a regular basis. But I'll try not to keep you up."

"I go to bed early, so could we have, say, no visitors after midnight or so?"

"That works. If I'm feeling social, I'll go to their rooms or the lounge or something."

"Thanks." Another silence.

"What about boys?" Amy asked.

"I don't have a boyfriend. I've never dated. I'd be uncomfortable with a boy spending the night, to be totally honest."

"I have a boyfriend, but he doesn't go to this college. Even if he did, he wouldn't spend the night. I might want to have guy friends over on occasion, but nothing like that."

"It's good that we're on the same page with that," I laughed.

"Same here." Pause. "Listen, I have to go…maybe we can talk online?"

"Sure. Talk to you soon."

The conversation had gone reasonably well. Tarash thought so too.

The worst thing about her is that she's a slob. And I'm not exactly a neat freak myself.

It does sound good, and she sounds nice. But wait until you meet her, Tarash warned. People can be a lot different than how they seem.

Amy and I talked a little through AIM during the next couple of weeks, but mostly there was no major communication. I suspected that we were both pretty nervous about rooming together for the next year, but, then again, who wouldn't be?

When the time came for me to actually pack up my things and move to college, I had a lot of help from my mom, my dad, and my younger sister, Laura. My older sister was at the beach with her friends and wouldn't be back until after I'd started college.

I was somewhat of a nervous wreck. It was the first time I had ever been away from home for a long period of time. In seventh grade, my teachers had us spend the first full week away from home at this ridiculous nature camp. Four nights, five days. I cried every single day, except the Friday that we returned.

This would be way more than four nights.

Now that it was time to leave, I wasn't sure if I could handle it. Over the year, I had imagined what college would be like. I had assumed that because I'd be so eager to escape from my loving, yet crazy, family, I would not feel any homesickness. I would live in a great dorm room and have an amazing roommate. I would be able to take naps during the day. I would not have class from 8 in the morning until 3:10 in the afternoon. I would be away from my loving, yet sometimes nagging, parents.

Life would be good.

The reality was that I was scared out of my mind and really did not want to make this transition. I was not ready for classes to start, I was not ready to leave home, and I definitely wasn't ready to have to face having a roommate after having my own room for my entire life.

On the ride there, Tarash talked to me. She took control so I wouldn't keep looking at my watch or something like that. Her voice was calm. Her presence was something that I had gotten used to during the past five years. She knew me incredibly well…so well that she knew when to just talk, and when not to say anything.

Now was a talking time.

I don't remember a lot about the ride there. I do remember that we left early in the morning. Hopefully, I would not be waking up this early for classes.

You won't, Tarash's voice came. Your Tuesday and Thursday classes are at 11. Your Monday and Wednesday ones are at nine. And Friday is just one class, which is at 10:30.

How do you remember all of this? I asked, amazed.

I'm excited, too, Tarash reminded me. Don't forget, we're in this together. Granted, that doesn't mean I can help you cheat on your tests or papers, but it does mean that I'm there whenever you need me. Well, except when I feed.

I groaned. We packed the Kandronas, right?

We triple checked. They're there, my Yeerk reassured.

I hope Amy's not in the room all of the time. I'd like to wait a little before springing the news on her.

We're going to probably tell her eventually. If the subject comes up. In the meantime, we'll just need to try and plan it when she's not there. Maybe during a gap in her classes or something. We'll figure something out, Tarash told me. One thing at a time, Em.

I gave a mental sigh. I'm not ready for this.

I know. But I'm pretty sure you'll be fine. Let's not think about the worst case scenarios just yet. We'll concentrate on surviving each day.

At least Amy doesn't seem too bad.

She seems nice, Tarash cautioned. But just remember that people can be different when you actually meet them.

My dad pulled the car in the driveway of the dorm. We got out of the car. A bunch of people wearing identical t-shirts showed us where to go, and told us that they would make sure all of my stuff was delivered to my room.

They pointed us in the direction to go for my dorm key. We had received my identification in the mail a few days ago.

The people at the desk were pretty nice. The line wasn't too bad, either. Within ten minutes, I had received my key and was standing outside of my room.

The place that I would be living in for the next thirty-two weeks.

I used my key to open the door. I was never very good with keys, but this time, I managed to get the door to unlock.

We had been the first ones to arrive. The room was empty, completely void of any items that Amy would have brought to college with her.

I had seen a few rooms in the all girls' dorm before, but that had been ages ago. I knew that the girls' dorms were larger than the coed dorms. I also knew that we had no air conditioning.

It didn't click until that second what no air conditioning meant. The room was extremely hot.

I turned to my parents. "Do you think we can open the windows?"

"Let me try," my dad offered. He was a little overweight, but stronger than either me or my mom. After a few minutes of grunting and swearing, we had all three windows open and the room seemed to feel cooler.

Even though the basement was also known as the ground floor, the windows were about where the ground began. I guessed that this meant that half of our bodies would be beneath the ground when we were in this room.

My mom turned towards my dad. "Where's Emily's stuff?"

"The student movers took it."

A few seconds later, I heard some voices coming around the hallway.

"Maybe that's them," my dad guessed.

I took a good, hard look at the room. The beds were high off the ground. I'd either need to climb up on a chair or at the end to get on it, or learn how to jump. It wasn't so high that I would need a ladder, but it could be dangerous if I fell.

That's good, though. Look at all of the space under the bed. You can use it for storage. Books, laundry, that kind of thing.

I peered under one of the beds. Tarash was right; it would be good for putting lots of stuff under.

Behind the bed, facing the main wall, was a large desk. Behind that was something that I assumed could be a closet. I opened it up, rather cautiously. A small dresser was inside.

"Do you think this can come out?" I asked my parents, pointing to the drawers.

"I think so, but let's wait until Amy gets here before we do anything," my dad replied, cautiously. My mom nodded as she examined the room, and I thought she might be getting a little teary eyed. I wasn't the first in my family to go to college, but it was still a landmark. I went over to my mom and she wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

"Love you, Emily."

"You too, Mom."

We were just standing there when Amy walked in with her parents. When I heard her enter, we faced each other and smiled.

"Hi."

"Hi."

Amy looked to be about two inches smaller than me, which said something because I was barely 5'2. Her face was friendly and her hair fell several inches below her shoulders. Wavy, but not super curly the way mine had been. Dark brown eyes, giving her a wide eyed appearance.

Her parents introduced themselves, and my parents did the same. They gave hugs all around, even though it was still too hot for this to be comfortable for anyone involved.

"So, this is our room," I said, for lack of anything better to say.

"Yeah. It's not so bad."

"What side do you want?"

"Oh, I don't care. Do you want to leave everything the way it is, or move the stuff around?"

"Let's move it around. Then, we can decide who gets what," I replied.

Amy's parents insisted on helping us, but that turned out to be difficult because none of us had a very good idea as to where we wanted everything to go. We finally decided that most of the furniture should be against the walls so that there would be more space in the center of the room. After some experimentation, one bed went against the side of the room near the door and the second bed went perpendicular to it against another wall. The closets went next to the windows in the small amount of space that was left over. Amy put one of the desks next to one bed. I put the other desk along the last free wall.

Once we were finished, the room looked a little odd, but felt much larger.

"I'll take the bed across the non door wall," Amy offered.

"That's fine."

A few people stopped by our room to drop off some of our stuff. Most of it went under my bed as we decided what to do with everything.

It was two hours before the room looked as though two people lived in it. I still had to find some posters and figure out how to decorate my side of the room, but it didn't look too bad.

I cried as I said goodbye to my parents. I wasn't ready to leave. I could live in this room for a night, maybe, but not a full year. I wasn't ready for classes to begin.

But we had a schedule to follow, and that schedule said that advising groups needed to meet at a selected spot at 1:30.

As my parents left, I told myself, At least I have Tarash. Even if things go horribly with Amy and my classes, at least I have my best friend.