My name is Marco.

You know that, of course. And let's be real: you know everything that's supposed to come next. I can't tell you my last name. Aliens are among us. Nobody is safe. Grab your perishables. The whole spiel.

Unfortunately, that's all still true. I wish it wasn't — I wake up every day wishing it wasn't — but it is. We're fighting the Yeerks with everything we've got, and it feels like we're losing more ground every day. We might be the underdogs, but I don't think there's going to be a bottom-of-the-ninth comeback for us, complete with Rocky-style training montages and slow-motion cheering from the adoring masses. (There would be adoring masses, of course; with a face as cute as mine, I'm always surrounded by fans, and my cred would only be improved by being recognized as a hero.) But reality can be a bitch, if you'll pardon my French, and I don't know if we're going to get lucky.

So with all this stress, enough angst to fill a Sarah McLaughlin album, why am I standing in the hallway outside Jake's classroom, waiting to invite more into my life? Well, you know what they say: the heart wants what it wants. And sometimes the heart doesn't care much about timing.

I can't stop shaking, and I'm pretty sure I'm wearing a path through the mint-and-mucus-colored linoleum floor. (You know, I overheard the high-school principal mention that this was the cheapest tile available, which explains the eye-meltingly ugly color. Only the best for America's youth, I guess.) Inside the classroom, I can hear the teacher droning on and on about some Shakespeare play, but it's like I'm Charlie Brown; I can't make out any of the words, only a vague nasally undercurrent of sound. But then again, I'm not sure I'm in much of a state of mind to make out anything, let alone the finer points of King Lear. I just keep listening for Jake's voice, asking himself to be excused. Isn't he going to do it soon? Can he even hear Tobias?

Where is that lousy bird, anyway?

As though I've summoned him, he's there. «Okay, Marco. He definitely heard me.»

I jump, immediately feeling guilty. At the same time I hear Jake's voice, low and patient as always but with just the faintest undercurrent of tension, asking to go to the nurse. That eats up a lot more time than a bathroom break; clearly our fearless leader is expecting the worst. What did Tobias say to him, exactly?

Of course, I can't actually communicate any of these thoughts to him, so as usual I only have myself for an audience. That's okay, though. I'm very appreciative of myself. I always get my jokes.

«I'm out of here.» There's an awkward pause as he tries to decide how much to admit he knows. «Good luck, man.»

I have just a moment to wonder if this is the stupidest thing I've ever done (it is. Even counting that one time with all those trash cans). Just a moment to savor the safe, sepulchral silence of a hallway when class is in session.

Just a moment before I ruin the last good thing left in my life.


It wasn't always like this, okay? It's not like I spent our entire friendship drawing Jake's name in little hearts in my notebook or something. Heck, I've never done that! I'm not some gooey teenage girl.

I'm still Marco.

It's funny, but I'm not sure I ever would've admitted it without the whole Animorphs thing, to myself or to anyone else. I mean, before then I might've . . . noticed some things about Jake that I didn't care about with other people — dumb things, like the color of his eyes and the fact that he has these really big arms, almost too big for the rest of his body. It's a little funny, but there's something endearing about it all the same. They're very safe arms.

But it's not like I was in love with him or anything. Not until it became abundantly clear that I might lose him.

You know what's really awful? I almost quit the Animorphs in the beginning. Who wants to be on the losing team, right? And I had my dad to look after. Obviously I changed my mind, and as much as I wanna say it was because the earth needed saving and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I gave up, my heart grew three sizes, yadda yadda yadda . . . that wasn't even close to the main reason. Mostly it was my mom — finding out she was enslaved to Visser One kinda made me reevaluate my life choices, you know? But weirdly enough, almost abandoning the world to total annihilation isn't the part that I feel most guilty about. It's that, until I decided I was in again, I'd been planning on bringing Jake with me.

Yeah, I should've known that our fearless leader would fearlessly lead until the bitter end, but even as we prepared for my last mission — well, what I'd assumed would be my last mission — I was running through ways to convince him to walk away, too. Leave the fighting to the warrior princesses and the Andalites and the people like Tobias who don't have anything left to risk; just quit, because I can't imagine losing you. I'd have conked him on the head and dragged him somewhere safe if I'd thought it would do any good. I couldn't stand the thought that Jake might die because I wasn't there to watch his back. That I might have to wake up and know that he wasn't going to meet me at the end of the road, that we weren't going to walk to school together, that I'd never get to crush him at video games again and watch his eyebrows furrow together until they looked like one long caterpillar in the middle of his forehead (it's his Frustration Face) and it'd be all my fault. I decided he was too good to lose, and that was that. I was bringing him with me, and I was prepared to use all sorts of underhanded means — including emotional blackmail and a heavy guilt trip, if my flawless logic and promise to starve out Tom's Yeerk didn't work — to do it.

So there you have it: I'm really not a noble hero, just a devoted son mixed with a selfish, lovestruck dumbass. Sorry to shatter your illusions about my perfection, but I'm afraid it's the truth. At least my face is just as gorgeous as ever.

It's weird, how much something stupid like a crush can take over your emotions and develop into this disease you never wanted and can't handle. Sure, I enjoyed watching him play basketball — I would've enjoyed watching him read the newspaper, if we're being honest — and there was something really fascinating about the way he laughed, like it was reluctantly drawn out of him every time, that made me want to keep being funny. Just to see how many laughs I could get out of him. But that's easy to deal with, right? Simple friendly neighborhood idolization, nothing even particularly romantic about it. Minor jealousy over Tobias joining our friend group, a little irritation over Cassie becoming such a regular feature in our conversations (I mean, really. I'm prettier than Cassie. Prettier than most people, though, so maybe that's not a fair comparison). It's the kind of thing you can push out of your head with a joke and move on with your day.

After this war began, though . . . maybe it's being around each other so much more often, maybe it's the whole almost-dying-at-least-once-a-week thing that gives you perspective, but it was like a light switched on in my brain, and things started creeping up on me. Mostly fear.

I've reached a point where I literally can't breathe while he demorphs. I don't care if he's only been in morph for ten minutes, part of me is always terrified that something will go wrong and he'll end up like Tobias (or worse, some sort of half-morphed monstrosity) and my breath just stops the moment his skin starts shifting and can't start back up until he's standing again, whole and healthy and perfect, all wounds forgotten like a bad dream. It's a real pain, let me tell you. Someday that guy is going to get me killed, just by demorphing too slowly.

And there's a thousand other things: if his hands are doing anything I cannot focus, part of my brain is always turned outward so that I don't miss a thought-speak message from or about him, and try as I might I can't bring myself to love Cassie the way everyone else does.

I don't know if that's love — Oprah is strangely quiet on the subject — but if it isn't I'm pretty sure I belong in a looney bin.

Sometimes I think I'd prefer that.


A/N: Beta'd by the brilliantly talented arin. This story would never have seen the light of day without their wonderful advice and encouragement. All mistakes are mine, and everyone should go read their Animorphs fics too.

Cover art includes the picture by Schreiend. It's a shame the picture is so small (stupid ff sizing regulations!) or you'd be able to see it in better detail. The gray smudge thing is actually text, which says "What happened to us?" — which I think is rather fitting, all things considered. To see the artwork in its full glory, please go to htt*p:/*/schreiend.*deviantart.*com*/art*/AM-Best-Friends-86392109. Just remove the asterisks, and be sure to check out their other stuff at http*:/*/schreiend.*deviantart.*com!