WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS

--A/N: Here we go... the drama continues. And by the by, I (heart) Marco!--

Chapter 10

"Oh God," he said again. He took a deep, shaky breath. His head righted itself and he looked at me. "If she had lived." His hands were shaking.

I swallowed. He'd done it. Indirectly, he had managed to crack me. I had just told him that one of his best friends were about to die. "Marco," I said, hoping that there was some way to undo my mistake.

"That's what you were going to say, isn't it?" he accused, catching my eyes.

Why did I want so badly to kiss him right now? The impulse was sudden and strong. This wasn't the time for things like that. It obviously wasn't what he wanted, so why did my lips urge to touch his? An image of us, passionately kissing crossed my mind, but I had to brush it away. Why did this always happen to me?

"I was going to tell you all tonight," I said. "I swear! Even ask Tobias!"

"You told Tobias?" he hissed more urgently.

"No! I couldn't. I didn't know how to say it! How am I supposed to..." I choked on a sob and tears started to run down my face. Damn! I had to be strong! Why was I so emotional?

"Alex," Marco said. "You can't cry. Look, I won't mention anything else about it until we get away from Jake, okay? I'll take you to the meeting tonight. It'll be okay."

I nodded and wiped away my tears, holding back the sobs like a couple of sticks trying to hold back a rushing river.

"There's just one thing I need to ask first," Marco said.

I stiffened. Oh no, now what?

"Was there an Alex in the books?"

I shook my head.

"Okay," Marco said. His tone brightened a little. "See? So things can change. We can still turn this around. Now just relax." He leaned back on his seat and closed his eyes. I noticed him grit his teeth for a moment before relaxing again and opening his eyes.

I flung my arms around him and held him. I blinked back tears. "I'm sorry," I said.

He paused for a moment in shock and then put his arms around me. "Don't be sorry, Alex. You're our opportunity to turn this around."

We hugged for a good ten seconds before Marco let go. Just as we separated, Jake took out his earphones. "This is the place," he announced.



The bus slowed screechingly to a stop and the three of us hopped off onto the curb.

There it was: The Gardens. In all of its glory. It was a beautiful mix of roller-coasters and bears, of merry-go-rounds and zebras. There were monkeys, birds, dolphins and whatever else I could possibly need.

"Wow," I said, now completely distracted from my problems. Sometimes I wonder if I have ADD.

"First," Jake said, "the dolphin tank. We should be fully prepared."

So we went to the dolphin tank. I remembered that they had been named after the cast of Friends. I was about to ask which one was Rachel, but then thought better of it. Instead, I just touched the nearest Dolphin and acquired it.

"Chandler," Marco said. "Good choice."

The funny one. And a guy. I smiled a little before following Jake and Marco to the land exhibits.

"Okay, Alex," Jake said. "We'll give you a bit of a choice. Cassie said you were interested in big cats, so you can have a cougar or a lynx. Here they have tame ones, so they'll be easy to acquire."

"Without you being acquired first," Marco quipped.

I considered this. It must have been a test. They were telling me to choose between a mountain lion and a tiny little animal that would hardly be useful.

I tried to imagine myself as each animal, fighting hork-bajir. I had to admit, I liked the look of the lynx a lot better, but the cougar would be much easier to use. A lynx was small and a cougar was big. But I didn't want to be a constant reminder of David. But maybe I wouldn't. Mountain lions didn't have manes or anything.

I clasped my hands together and tried to explain. "Well, I don't have much experience," I said. "I like the idea of a lynx, but it's awfully small and I don't know if I could use it very well. It hunts like, rabbits and stuff doesn't it?"

"Nah," Marco said with a shrug. "It's actually really tough. I think it hunts bigger prey than the cougar sometimes. I was looking them up during science when we were supposed to be working on that cell project."

That put me in a confusing place. I wanted to feel the power of the big cat, but the lynx was now the obvious answer. "What do you guys think I should get?" Really, neither of them would have been my first choice. I would have much rather gone for a white tiger or a panther, or something equally cool. Even a cheetah would have been a better choice. But these were my options.

"I'd get the cougar," Jake said.

"Really?" Marco asked. "I think I would get the lynx."

I hung my head. "That doesn't make my pick any easier."

Marco grinned. "Well, what are you leaning towards?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I guess the lynx is tough, but I mean, the cougar is bigger, and I think I wouldn't have much of a problem using it. In this case, I think bigger might be better."

"Good point," Marco said.

"Maybe you just need to look at them before you decide," Jake said. "They're both over this way."

I followed Marco and Jake. They exchanged a little bit of witty banter about video games, which I was unfamiliar with, so I just laughed along with them. Marco grinned at me at one point and said, "You don't understand a word of what we're talking about, do you?"

"A little," I said defensively.

"Have you ever even played Mario?" Jake asked. He seemed different than usual. He was just laughing and joking with his best friend. It wasn't long before he wouldn't be able to do that anymore.

"I've watched people play it," I said defensively.

Marco blinked. "What?" He stared at me. "How is that even possible? You, my friend, need to get in on some Super Mario Brothers time."

My heart jumped at the word "friend." Marco thought I was a friend. I felt honoured. Aside from Cassie, he must have been the only person that liked me.

"Okay," I said eagerly. "That would be awesome!"

I don't usually talk to guys much. The only guy friend I'd ever had at home wasn't so intimidatingly cool and attractive as the guys here were. I guess I had less trouble talking to guys that I felt were below me in social status.

I tried to remember why anyone in the books had ever rejected Marco. He was charming, sweet, funny and clever. Why would anyone not want him for a boyfriend?

"Cool," Marco said.

I could now see the lynx's cage. It wasn't hard to find the animal. A trainer was in the cage and the lynx was jumping on him like an excited puppy.

The first thing I noticed was that the lynx wasn't quite knocking down the trainer. Though it looked like he wobbled, the lynx was unsuccessful in its efforts. It was small, and an ugly gray color. I decided right away that this was not my animal.

"Let's look at the cougar," I said.



So we walked about two cages down and looked at the cougar. It was beautiful. It lounged on a rock right next to the fence. Beyond convenient. All I had to do was reach through the wire and touch it. The bar keeping the people a good two feet from the animals was at my hips. The cougar stared through the cage bars at me lazily.

"Yeah," I said to Jake and Marco. "Yeah, I think I want the cougar."

"Okay," Marco said. "No problem." He turned away from the cougar's cage, looked up, nudged Jake and pointed into the sky. Jake and I followed his gaze, but I saw nothing there.

"Go Alex," Jake said in a low voice.

I looked around and noticed that the few people that were standing around were also looking up, following Marco's stare.

"See?" Marco said loudly. "It's right there!"

"Where?" Jake asked.

Of course! Now I understood! It was a distraction. Nobody was watching the boring cougar anymore. Everyone was shading their eyes and trying to figure out what Marco was looking at.

I quickly stepped over the metal bar and walked up to the cage. The cougar was watching me. I touched a bit of fur that was protruding through the bars. I stroked the little piece gently and the cougar didn't react. I acquired it and then stepped back over the bar before anyone had given up on the sky searching.

"Now do you see it?" Marco asked.

"Oh! There it is!" Jake said. He pointed too. "It's right there. I can't believe I missed it."

I walked over to the two of them and looked up too. "You guys are delusional," I said, "There's nothing there!" I had to stop myself from giggling.

"Ah, whatever!" Marco said. "Come on, let's go! I'll be late for dinner."

So we walked out of The Gardens and got on the bus.

"Alex, do you want to have dinner over at my place?" Marco asked so that Jake could hear.

I gave an involuntary shudder at the memory of what was to come. "Yeah, sure," I answered as casually as I could manage.

"So, you have Friends wherever it is you come from, right?"

"Friends?" I asked. Wasn't that a bit of a personal question?

"Yeah, you know, the T.V. show? Monica, Chandler, Pheobe, Joey, Ross and Rachel?" Marco asked.



"Oh. Yeah. I love that show!"

"Yeah, the dolphins are named after the characters. You picked Chandler."

"Yeah, I know," I said.

"Oh, okay. I just wasn't sure if you got that when I said it," Marco said.

"Nah, I got it," I said.

"Okay," he said.

We sat in an uncomfortable silence for the rest of the bus ride. Obviously he was trying his best not to ask any questions that would send me into a panic, but I was busy trying to figure out the order of the last ten books in my head.

I knew that fourty-five was the one where his dad found out and he saved his mom. What was fourty-six? Well, Visser One was gone so it must have been the one where Visser Three was promoted. Forty-seven was the one with Jake's relative from the civil war. The one where they make the dam. Forty-eight was... what was forty-eight? Every one of these books was important! I couldn't afford to forget a single thing!

I tried to calm myself down. It's okay ,I thought, I can fill in the blanks later.

Now, forty-nine was the one where their parents found out. Fifty was when they recruited the Auxiliary Animorphs and Tom took the morphing cube. Fifty-one was the one with the ducks on the front, when they made the invasion public. Fifty-two was from Ax's point of view, when they took out the yeerk pool with a subway train of explosives. Fifty-three was the one when they get inside the pool ship and beat everyone, and of course, the last book was when Rachel died and the war was over.

So I was only missing one book. I looked at Marco and Jake, hoping that something would come to me. Maybe something they had said would give me a hint.

Of course! David! David hadn't yet come back. And Crayak was going to bribe Rachel. That was the missing piece!

I felt so much better now that it was all fresh in my memory. Now that I knew how things were going to go, I felt like I could plan around them.

Everything was going to be okay.