AN: Sorry about the delay! Holidays slowed me down a bit. I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving!

TW: This chapter has a moderately graphic depiction of a human corpse. If this will bother you, I recommend skipping this chapter.

I'd never been in a morgue before.

It's funny, really, because I've seen a lot of dead bodies. Probably more than an average mortician. And not just humans—Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, Yeerks. Can you imagine seeing something that's like a giant centipede have its belly sliced open, and then seeing its comrades feast on the fresh corpse?

I don't have to imagine.

The funny thing is, those were all newly dead bodies, and in fights. Us or them. Kill or be killed. I wasn't sure it was right, but there's a certain focus you get when people are trying to kill you. It helps you ignore some things, at least until later.

It was strange, but I found my stomach was tight with nervousness as Naomi and I waited for the attendant. The beings I'd killed before, they were strangers. This was Rachel, Rachel who'd always been so alive.

Rachel's mom had managed to find some nice clothes and makeup for herself. Rachel would probably have approved. She'd have said that just because we were going to identify her body, that didn't mean we should let ourselves go. She hadn't been able to stop crying since we got into the car—this stiff, quiet sort of crying where I could tell that she was trying to be tough.

I leaned over and put an arm around her, trying to comfort her a little. It was funny—she'd complained so much and tried to run off so many times while we were in the woods. More than any of the other parents, she hadn't taken it well. But here, she was trying to be as tough as she could while she was getting ready to see her daughter's body.

The attendant came out. The room wasn't really like I'd imagined it from movies—it was more comfortable and a lot brighter than I expected. There was even some music. And the attendant looked mostly like a doctor or a nurse. She sat down with a file folder.

"Ms. Altman. Cassie." She set the folder on the table between us, still closed. "Before you open this, I'd like to let you know a little about what you're going to see. What we believe was Rachel was recovered in space by the Andalite forces, in orbit around Earth. Now, exposure to space causes some drying out, so I want to warn you that she may look a bit different. Give yourself a few minutes if you need it."

Naomi didn't move, staring at the folder like it was a snake. I leaned forward and picked it up, opening it.

The photographs inside were clinical. The body had been cleaned up, I could tell that. The face was sunken, as if someone had started to shrink-wrap it onto the skull beneath. The color was oddly preserved, although her hair looked strange and stiff, like a bad wig. She'd have hated that. I could hear Naomi sobbing next to me, but it sounded like it was a really long way away. "That's Rachel." I was surprised at how my voice sounded. It didn't quite sound like mine, somehow. I stood up, putting the folder on the table. "I want to see her."

The attendant looked a bit alarmed and shook her head. "That's really not a good—"

I cut her off with a glare. "I've just helped take down an entire army. Do you really think you're going to stop me from going in there?" I almost winced at the coldness in my voice, but I couldn't seem to stop either.

The woman swallowed and said, "I'll go speak to my manager."

I nodded once and sat down to wait. I wasn't above morphing fly and sneaking in if I had to, but I'd rather not. I didn't have my morphing uniform.

The attendant came back with her manager. He sighed and shook his head. "May I speak to you privately, Ms. Price?"

That brought Naomi's head up, and she glared at him too, standing up and stepping into his space. "I am a licensed lawyer in this state. Do you seriously expect to keep me out of this either?"

I had to fight down a laugh at that—I wasn't sure I could keep it from going too far, like back at the hotel. But she sounded so much like her old self just then, tears and now slightly-rumpled suit and all. "Speak to both of us, please."

He sighed and sat down, motioning for us to do the same. "We generally don't show the bodies to the families in these cases. There are…injuries that can be avoided in the photographs, and I think you'd be happier without seeing them. Imagine her as she was."

I laughed once, a bitter sound. "I watched her die. We all did." Well, the Animorphs had. Not Rachel's mother. The point was still the same. "She deserves this."

The man sighed and nodded, before leading us in. The room itself looked more like what I'd expected—a wall of doors concealing the bodies. He went to the right one, and opened it, before pulling it out.

The body was wrapped in a soft white fabric I didn't recognize. Probably it was the Andalites that had done that. I noticed that there wasn't any blood on the fabric, which seemed weird at first. But I supposed by the time they found her, it would have frozen or something. The man gently went to lift the corner of the fabric up to show her face. I saw the discoloration at the back of her head where it had slammed into the bulkhead when the polar bear-morphed Yeerk killed her.

I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling the emptiness well up in me.

It was true. Rachel was dead.

I was never going to hear her tease me about my unfashionable clothes again. I was never going to get dragged to the mall to go shopping. I was never going to hear Marco tease her by calling her Xena.

I was never going to fight by her side again.

I heard Naomi burst into sobs and get led out by the manager, leaving me alone for a minute.

I stared at the body. It looked like a body, not like a person sleeping.

My family was never that religious. We went to church sometimes, did a few social things there now and then. I didn't believe that much in it, especially after what we knew about the Ellimist and Crayak. But at that moment, I wished I did a little.

I swallowed a little, and looked at the stiff face. "I'm sorry. I wish…I wish it hadn't happened. I know you'd probably say it was necessary and that Jake—Jake made the right call. I think you probably knew what was going to happen. But I—" I swallowed back tears of my own. "We're all going to miss you. Especially Tobias. I think he's—I don't know." I fell quiet for a few moments. "You scared me sometimes, but I knew—I knew you'd always be there, when we got into a fight. You were amazing, and I wish you could have been here to see this."

I swallowed, and I felt the tears running down my face as I leaned over to put the cloth back over her face and push the table back in. "Bye, Rachel. I'll miss you."