A/N: Written just because in 'The Capture', the leaderless Animorphs' determination, and said leader's total conviction that they'd come through for him(and oh yeah, for humanity), was what sealed my love for these characters.

And I'm quite nervous about this. Tobias POV. First person POV. An actual oneshot.

Gulp.

Out of the Woods

'We were ready…. So you hang in, Jake. The forest is full of your friends'

-Cassie, 'Animorphs #6: The Capture'

So, here's the thing: I've seen a lot of strange stuff in this life. You see, barely a year ago, my entire existence changed. I changed, and I never went back.

I'm still not sure how I like it- let me get back to you on that.

Or, you know what? Let's not talk about it. It's a long, insane road that goes around a red-tailed hawk and battles within and first sunrises and the view from the sky, and then more of me, Tobias.

Well, this is not about me.

No, what I saw that day after the sunrise wasn't about me. It was about me, my friends, and three nightmare days; three straight days about Jake and the thing that had gotten inside his head, inside of ours.

They were entirely human, and I was watching over them, deep in those woods. I saw for miles on end, told them where to go, and man what a rush to have things under my eye again.

What can I say. The past three days, none of us had belonged to ourselves.

.

I figure we'll all end up in some psych ward one day-- those of us who are human, that is.

--But never mind that.

Let me tell you about Jake, because it all began and ended with Jake. I still see all of us, making our way out of the woods—my hawk eyes don't miss a thing, my mind's eye can still sketch it out; and I see Jake, holding his head high, but very visibly ashen.

He's about to break Cassie's wrist, the way he hangs on to it; and he all but leans against Marco, who looks like he wants to carry him the whole way through. And Rachel strides at the lead, shouting out at the sky, at me, running low on her own steam. Four human kids, one hawk, and we just kind of saved the world.

Yeah. We do that.

To somebody else, this sight would make absolutely no sense. My point of view, a birds-eye view in every sense: four oddly dressed kids finding their way out of the forest. Headed for civilization, and headed somewhere, and just being themselves, entirely human.

I can still see that moment— out of the surrounding woods we all closed in, as that thing in Jake's head withered and died.

Ever since this whole thing started, ever since I was stuck in my hawk's body, I just didn't have it in my messed-up head to take all these moments to heart. But just now, something tells me I really should.

Because I remember three days ago, these same woods at way past midnight: five of us and a desperate, unwavering plan. One of us, the leader of us, trapped in his own head; and if we slip, falter, fail, we're all dead---

"Okay—let's go over this one more time."

"It's beyond insane—"

"You do know Jake would kill us." Silence. "Like, literally kill us."

That had been Marco of course, hard and sardonic. And then Cassie broke just a little bit, shivering with arms wrapped around himself, and Ax went to stand with her, his glinting eyes strangely calming in that Andalite way. I kept my look-out, my hawk's eyes fixed on the place in the forest that was Jake, chained up outside and inside himself; with Rachel, tight and coiled to strike, to contain, to protect.

Ax fired the battle plans at us in terse thought-speak, and that kept everyone rooted in their places.

We were ready as we'd ever be.

//Let's do it,// Rachel had said again, as we dispersed; and for the first time, her thought-voice hitched a little. Nobody said anything about it, not even Marco. Jake was trapped inside himself; we could only hope he was urging us all along to make it.

We didn't say it but we knew-

When it came down to it, he would think about us. He wouldn't bring us down with him; he'd rather die.

There was a cloak-and-dagger fight for dominion, stranger than anything else in those woods, for three straight days. It was a game, an insane chase; and we had him, if we kept our heads, if we kept our minds-

-I won't wonder, though, if any of us don't forget the fight that Yeerk put up; good grief, our sorry minds. It's one thing to have your enemy glare at you before he takes you down; but when you look a friend ( fearless leader) in the face and see that kind of hate—

All you can do is stare right back, hate that thief in his head—know he's beaten, know you'll have him soon—know Jake will be back, will he ever be back.

-Know that in ourselves, because if we didn't have that, well forget it. There wouldn't be anything left.

And came sunrise, the third day.

Cassie completely steeled herself for it; I could tell. She stood before us and said- "Let me go. Circle the place, but….but just keep out of sight."

I don't know exactly what she thought we were hiding from. It had struck us from the first day- that Yeerk had Jake…and it had every bit of us that it could scrape from him—it knew.

But Cassie entered that shack first, and I can see her in my mind watching the sickening pain on the thing that had Jake—I don't know how she could take it, but she did. And we all let out our breaths when Jake, really Jake, stumbled out of that shack, raised his head, looked all around in the early sunlight, and we let ourselves loose.

I can still see it— Jake, because he's Jake, this close to collapsing but getting to his feet and that look on his face when he sees us, and we're all a wreck: Marco, whose tight shirt is torn, hanging off his shoulder, relics of a bad demorph after a brush with the wolves; Cassie, her face slack, holding Jake's hand, her upper lip trembling; Rachel, somehow managing to look a beautiful mess, and the look she throws at me in the sky, and then at Jake, is radiant.

"We did it," she says and laughs raucously, and to everyone's astonishment, she throws herself at Jake, raining light slaps on his upper body, then slinging one arm around his neck. Cassie's never even let go of him, and his arm falls tight around her. And Marco completes the missing space, not ever touching anybody, but Jake's eyes fall hard on him, and this look passes between them. Maybe a telepathic best friend thing—I wouldn't know.

They're a tight mess of warm, quivering humans; and I'm a hawk beating his wings in the risen sun, watching them. Rachel, she shot a look me right then, and even she was too high on life to have the usual worry in her eyes. But right then, I was all good. I read a story once, about someone so tiny, she could only fit in one emotion at a time. Watching my friends then, I soared in too many ways. I almost forgot I was anything less than still human after all.

It was me who found my voice, who said, //Guys, let's get going, Ax is still out there.//

Ax, who had broken out of Jake's house early on, separated from the rest of us when we entered the woods. Scouring the perimeter, that's what he'd said. It was something else though—I'm starting to get how the Ax-man functions. There was something about his Prince infested with a filthy Yeerk that riled him like no other. Ax didn't know what he would do, how all his four limbs and tail-scythe would react, seeing the immediate aftermath of a Yeerk's deathly hours.

But he would not miss this, not for anything. I knew he'd come to us.

And all the time we make our way out of there, we don't ask any questions; the whole story from Jake's mind can wait. He's a worse sight than the rest of us --maybe a demorph leaves no marks but I can see his face, harrowed and taut and dead-pale, and his haunted eyes, and the tatters that's been made of his outfit; I can see him fighting to keep upright, and the tilt of his head in my direction, his ragged smile speaking volumes. He gives me a jerky thumbs-up and I laugh and say, //Right back at you, Fearless Leader.//

It doesn't even cover what we both went through. I saw that Yeerk in him, was the only one who spoke to it. I don't need to kill you, I'd said. If that Yeerk had still wanted everything we had to give, or just wished itself to come to an end right then, I didn't know.

I never will and I don't think I care.

I only see how Cassie keeps her hand on Jake; Marco angling his body, jaw clenched, chin jutting out, like he's daring the now-dead thing to come back; and Rachel, always Rachel, striding ahead with an almost predatory grace.

I only see a running blur of blue-deer-centaur in the risen sun, cutting through the woods; the strange sight of him slowing to a walk in front of Jake, four of his solemn alien eyes locked on a human boy, Andalite body poised in deference, deadly grace in all the lines of his body. And then, wouldn't you know it, the very first words out of Ax are //Prince Jake—//

Jake groans right out loud and lets loose his first real laugh, stirring us up all over again.

And there we were, the six of us, laughing--breathing—living; nothing else mattered. I've seen a lot of strange things in the life I've got now, but that day out of the woods, I was just there. And you couldn't have tempted me to be anywhere else in the world.

End

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