Animorphs The Ending Chapter 25, an animorphs fanfic

Chapter 25

Note: This chapter is brought to you by sadness and all it's related emotions. But don't worry, the next chapter will be brought to you by Pringles!

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Jake

I had no idea how long we were flying for and how far we actually flew. I had come to terms fairly quickly that my crew was trying to get me to do the right thing, and I didn't blame them for it. Crayak had beaten us. The question now was how. How did he get everything that could possibly stop him out of the ship? It must have been while we were sleeping, but he didn't even wake anyone, not even Tobias. Maybe he just absorbed the pieces as well. Could he do that? I didn't know. And that was my problem, I didn't know. Ever since we first had an encounter with him I wasn't sure what he could and would do. And now, four people are dead or captured because I didn't wait to find out. I didn't have the information I needed, but I tried to go ahead anyway. That's when I had failed everyone as a leader.

I could've kept flying until my seagull body finally gave out. And I probably would've if it hadn't been for Tobias. I really wasn't aware that he was even following me until he said, Jake, we only have about twenty minutes left in morph.

After hearing those words I guess my subconscious mind took control since I was too far gone. I stopped flapping and slowly began to lose altitude. I didn't even attempt to land as I just continued to glide until by belly scrapped against the ground. After one of my wings finally dug into the ground, I took a few tumbles to kill my momentum and ended up spread out on my back gazing up at the slowly appearing stars. Then I began to demorph.

After I had finished demorphing I just continued to lie there in the dust. I didn't want to move. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to do anything. All I could think about was all the times I'd failed everyone as a leader at almost every point in our stupid mission.

I'd managed not to lose anyone under my command for almost the entire war back on Earth, and now I had lost four people in a week or two. I'd lost my leadership skills. I was no good to anyone now. And to top it all off, everything that happened since we left Earth was my fault. "It's all my fault," I said out loud, not really meaning to at the time, "everything's my fault."

I had once again forgotten that Tobias was still there until he said in response, "Jake, don't say that. You know that it isn't all your fault. Crayak just flat out beat us this time. We still have the trap waiting to be used and we still have a chance to get him."

"But I felt something odd about him," I said quickly in response. "I should've known. I should've seen it coming. But I failed you and Menderash by not doing anything. And that wasn't the first time."

"Jake," Tobias interrupted, "I felt the same thing too. But Crayak put on such a convincing show that I just couldn't be sure. And if I couldn't be sure I wouldn't even dream of you being sure. And what do you mean that this wasn't the first time?"

"I've been failing you this whole time," I said, getting as angry as I could at myself. "Everything that we've done while on this mission has turned out to be a complete failure."

"Jake!" Tobias said quickly interrupting me, "you know that's not true! We were able to rescue someone from Crayak. We took out his entire crew and have a trap almost ready for him. I wouldn't call that failing exactly. In fact, we're right on the edge of victory."

"But at what cost?" I asked in response, sitting up for the first time and staring Tobias in the face. "We've lost four people already, not to mention all those Vanderschput as well. Back on Earth we could've done all we have here and more without so much as breaking a sweat."

"But we're not on Earth," Tobias said, starting to get frustrated, "we're here. You can't go off and compare them both together. They're two totally different things."

"Even though they may be different," I said in response, "They're not as proportional as they should be. On Earth, we had six kids fighting off an entire army of alien invaders and we didn't lose anyone until the very end. Here, we had six slightly older kids trying to fight off a small ship's worth of enemies and we've already lost four."

"But Jake," Tobias said pleadingly, "You know that the circumstances are different here. First, we had our ship crash which killed Santorelli and Marco, not you. Then, we had to fight morph capable controllers which we never really had to do back on Earth. And then, Crayak just beat us. It wasn't your fault. He just beat us."

"But it was my fault we were in all those situations to begin with," I countered as I let my body fall back down to it's previous position. "I lead everyone into them without knowing what I was up against. Knowing your enemy is a fundamental part of being a leader, and I've failed in that regard. I've not only failed you, but I've failed everyone who's been under my command this whole trip. I've failed as a leader more times than I can count. If I were you Tobias, I'd go find somewhere safe and away from me or you might end up like everyone else. I'll try to do what I can and hopefully deal with Crayak."

There was a moment of silence as Tobias tried to digest what he just heard. I was a little shocked myself at what I had actually said as well. Sure, I was just trying to look out for him. But the way I said it made it feel like I didn't want him around anymore which wasn't the case. I knew that I would need all the help I could get with Crayak, but I didn't know if I could live with myself if I lost anyone else under my command.

"Jake," Tobias said eventually, "You're a great leader. I'm sure that we wouldn't have stood a chance back on Earth if it wasn't for you. And the moment we spotted the blade ship out here I thought we were all going to die right there and then. But we didn't. Because of you the majority of us survived to continue fighting another day."

He seemed to pause for a bit as if he was waiting for a reaction from me, but although I could hear his words, they really didn't seem to register with me yet. After a moment's silence, he let out a sigh and continued.

"Jake, I trust you with my life and I have ever since the beginning. I've followed you down to the gates of hell and back more times than I can count, and I'll continue to follow you back down until I physically can't anymore. If you rationally told me to do something, I'd do whatever it was in a heartbeat. I know that things have been tough for you lately, so I want to tell you something that I've wanted to tell you ever since you decided to become our leader."

"Thanks."

"Thanks for taking up the role that no one else wanted to. Thanks for keeping your cool when it looked like there was no way out. Thanks for coming up with all the plans you did and thanks for being there when we all needed someone to be strong. I'm not sure if anyone else ever said thanks, but I know that every single person that was ever under your command would say the same thing if they had the chance. And I'm sure that when their respective times came to go that they didn't put any of the blame for it on you. And no matter what happens to me, I know I won't put any of the blame for anything that's happened in my life on you."

He paused again as if he was waiting for a reaction, but I didn't give him one at first. My mind was slowly coming back from wherever it had been and needed a second to understand what he was trying to say. I could feel him trying to come up with something else to say when my mind finally caught up with what was going on.

"Tobias," I said as I sat up again to look him straight in the eyes, "do you really mean all that?"

"Every last word," was all he said in reply.

I immediately threw my arms around him and gave him a giant hug. He had just said exactly what I needed to hear. If Tobias was still behind me then there was no reason that I shouldn't be behind myself. If he still believed in me then god damnit, I should too. And just knowing that he didn't blame me for everything that had been going wrong made me feel a whole lot better inside.

I felt the tears start to come. No, I told myself, I have to be strong. I can't break down in front of Tobias. I need to lead. And I can't lead if I'm too busy wrapped up in my emotions…

But it was no use. I had been strong for too long and I couldn't hold it back any longer. I felt the tears begin to flow as I began to sob into Tobias' shoulder.

Almost as soon as I had started Tobias pulled me out to an arms length away with his hands on my shoulders and said, "Jake, if we start crying now we might never stop. After we take care of Crayak we can just sit and cry the rest of our lives away. But for right now, we need to focus."

"You're right Tobias," I said clearing away the tears with my hand, "you're right."

As I started to catch my emotions and get myself under control once again, something that's been bugging me ever since we left Earth decided to pop into my mind.

"Tobias," I said still with a hint of the previous sobbing left, "I have something I want for you to do for me."

"What is it Jake?" Tobias asked. "You know that I'll do anything you need me too."

"It's something that I wanted to say to everyone after we left Earth, but I could never muster up the courage to actually say it," I replied. "But since we're being so open with each other now, I figure that it's now or never." I took a deep breath and continued. "If…if I don't make it out of here alive…"

"Don't say things like that Jake," Tobias interrupted.

"No Tobias," I said quickly interrupting him, "this is important to me. I need you to listen."

He seemed to want to say something else, but he thought better of it and he slowly went back to listening.

"If I don't make it out of here alive," I began again, "I want you to tell Cassie that it's my fault that things worked out the way they did and I'm sorry. But if she's happy then I'm happy for her too."

I just sat there for a while and stared into Tobias' usually unemotional eyes until I heard Tobias say, "Jake, you can…"

"Tobias," I interrupted, "I want you to promise me that you'll tell her if you can."

Tobias took a short pause and finally said, "Sure Jake, I promise."

For the first time in a while, a smile crossed my face. "Thanks," I said, wondering whether I should pull him into another hug. But at that point another thought crossed my mind. "Could you also tell Ronnie to take good care of her?"

"Sure Jake," Tobias answered, "whatever you want."

I gave another small smile before I started to stand up with renewed energy and say, "So, you ready to go kick Crayak's butt?"

"Actually Jake," Tobias with a hint of nervousness in his voice, "since we're being so open here, I kinda wanted to ask you for your help."

I sat back down and started to listen. He seemed tentative to start, but he eventually squeezed out some more words.

"I know that this might seem like a weird time to talk about this, but I've been trying to ask you about it ever since we got back from Crayak's ship." He paused for another moment as if he was deciding whether to continue or not, but eventually he kept going.

"When I went after the polar bear, I wasn't myself. I didn't have control over anything I did. So when it finally came time to end our battle I couldn't control what I did. Not only did I end up violently killing a demorphed, helpless human controller, but afterwards I desecrated his body. I ripped out almost all his vital organs, tore off his leg, and then tore off his head. I smashed the skull open to get at the Yeerk inside which I eventually…eventually swallowed whole to be digested by my stomach acid. When I finally snapped back into reality it was too late to do anything about it. And now I keep having these flashbacks of everything I did, even though I didn't really do any of it."

I had a suspicion that it was going to have something to do about what happened on Crayak's ship. I hadn't seen Tobias actually do any of the things he just told me, but I had caught a glimpse at the remnants. I knew that Tobias would have too much emotion stored inside him to control, but I also knew that it would be better for him to experience what all that emotion could do instead of trying to get him to snap out of it. Even so, I still hadn't expected that he'd go as far as he did and I was a little shocked at what I had heard, but I couldn't show it. That would be the exact opposite of what Tobias wanted and needed to see right now.

"I guess what I'm trying to ask is," Tobias continued after a short pause, "what should I do? What should I do to stop these memories? What should I do to make myself feel like I'm not what I had become? What could I do to make myself feel better?"

"Tobias," I finally said after giving it some thought, "we've all been in situations like yours before. And I guess the first thing I should ask is that are you really sure that you regret what you did? Take a moment and really think about it. Was what you did all worth it?"

I was trying to get him to see the positive point of view of what he did instead of just the negative, but I had a feeling inside that it wouldn't be enough.

He thought about it for a little bit before finally saying, "No, what I did wasn't worth it. I could've lived with the gruesome death because some times things like that happen, but what I did afterwards was just plain wrong and there is no excuse for it."

"In that case," I continued on, "there's only one thing that I've found that works. You have to learn something from your experience. You need to figure out what it was that lead you to do what you did and make sure that it never happens again. You'll always have that memory in the back of your head to remind you of what you did, but knowing how to prevent it from happening again will calm your mind down some. And in your case, what you should learn from your experience is to not hold in your emotions for so long. That's what took control of you, your emotions. And if you don't let them out a little bit at a time there might be a chance that something like that will happen again. As long as you're able to let out a reasonable number of your emotions, you should be fine."

He kind of stared at me for a minute before he pulled me into a soft hug this time. "I don't know why Jake," he said in my ear, "but that's exactly what I needed to hear."

"Glad I could help," I said as I slowly pulled away from him. "Now are you ready to go kick some Crayak butt?"

"Let's do it!" Tobias said with just a hint of a smile on his usually emotionless face as we both began to morph.

Tobias

So we flew. We flew and flew and flew. Half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half. We just kept on flying in complete silence. I had no idea where Jake was going, or even if he knew himself, but I knew that he'd need me whenever we got there. We've been through so much together that I wasn't about to abandon him now when he really needed me. So I just followed him quietly until we had around twenty minutes left in morph. (Having to morph as much as I do, even after a few years of limited morphing, you get a real good idea of how long two hours is.) After I let him know he seemed to stop flapping and start to glide into a landing, but I don't think that landing was the most important thing on his mind at that point.

He didn't as much as flinch as he passed by his safe landing height. He just continued to glide. I thought about trying to call out to him, but I figured that it wouldn't do any good anyway. So I just watched him as his belly started to scrape the dusty, sandy ground. Eventually, one of his wing tips dug into a small pile of dirt and he began to roll. He ended up on his back looking up at the sky and began to demorph.

I landed quietly next to him and after my own quick demorph I morphed to my human self and lied down next to Jake. I figured that my human form would be a lot easier to talk to than a hawk. I knew that I wasn't that good with facial expressions really, but every once in a while something would squeak out. Anyway, my human face would be a lot easier to look at then my intense and intimidating hawk face would've been.

So I just lied there and looked up at the slowly appearing stars with Jake right by my side. I tried to think of something to say, but besides the old cliché lines that everyone always says I couldn't think of anything. But I didn't have to wait for too long before Jake made the first move.

"It's all my fault," he said out loud surprising me, "everything's my fault."

I wasn't sure if he really meant it or not, but either way I had already prepared an answer. "Jake, don't say that. You know that it isn't all your fault. Crayak just flat out beat us this time. We still have the trap waiting to be used and we still have a chance to get him."

"But I felt something odd about him," he said in response. "I should've known. I should've seen it coming. But I failed you and Menderash by not doing anything. And that wasn't the first time."

"Jake," I interrupted, "I felt the same thing too. But Crayak put on such a convincing show that I just couldn't be sure. And if I couldn't be sure I wouldn't even dream of you being sure." And then the last part of his statement hit me. "And what do you mean that this wasn't the first time?"

"I've been failing you this whole time," he said with some anger and frustration in his voice. "Everything that we've done while on this mission has turned out to be a complete failure."

"Jake!" I yelled in surprise while sitting up for the first time and staring him straight in the face, "you know that's not true! We were able to rescue someone from Crayak. We took out his entire crew and have a trap almost ready for him. I wouldn't call that failing exactly. In fact, we're right on the edge of victory."

"But at what cost?" he asked gloomily, sitting up for the first time and staring straight into my eyes. "We've lost four people already, not to mention all those Vanderschput as well. Back on Earth we could've done all we have here and more without so much as breaking a sweat."

I paused for a moment to think of a good answer. I already knew that Jake would probably blame himself for everyone that we've lost, but I didn't really expect him to come from this angle.

"But we're not on Earth," I said, hoping that it would be good enough to convince him, "we're here. You can't go off and compare them both together. They're two totally different things."

"Even though they may be different," he quickly said in response, "They're not as proportional as they should be. On Earth, we had six kids fighting off an entire army of alien invaders and we didn't lose anyone until the very end. Here, we had six slightly older kids trying to fight off a small ship's worth of enemies and we've already lost four."

"But Jake," I said pleadingly, "You know that the circumstances are different here. First, we had our ship crash which killed Santorelli and Marco, not you. Then, we had to fight morph capable controllers which we never really had to do back on Earth. And then, Crayak just beat us. It wasn't your fault. He just beat us."

"But it was my fault we were in all those situations to begin with," he countered as he let gravity take his body and pull it back to the ground. "I lead everyone into them without knowing what I was up against. Knowing your enemy is a fundamental part of being a leader, and I've failed in that regard. I've not only failed you, but I've failed everyone who's been under my command this whole trip. I've failed as a leader more times than I can count. If I were you Tobias, I'd go find somewhere safe and away from me or you might end up like everyone else. I'll try to do what I can and hopefully deal with Crayak."

I was in shock. Had Jake just told me to go somewhere safe and away from him? Sure, I guess that he thought about things like that all the time, but to say it out loud was something that neither me nor probably him had expected. He must've been in worse shape than I had originally thought if he let something like that slip.

I knew that I had to do something to help him feel like he hadn't failed us, but I didn't quite know what to say. And after a short pause in the conversation I still didn't know what it was that he needed to snap him out of whatever he was in, but I felt a speech coming on…

"Jake," I said eventually, "You're a great leader. I'm sure that we wouldn't have stood a chance back on Earth if it wasn't for you. And the moment we spotted the blade ship out here I thought we were all going to die right there and then. But we didn't. Because of you the majority of us survived to continue fighting another day."

I thought that maybe those few words would be enough, but Jake didn't change his blank expression at all. I waited and tried to give him some time to think, as well as some time for me to think of something else to say, but eventually I knew that I needed to continue. Even though I was far from the best at coming up with comforting words, I wasn't going to give up on him now. I let out a small sigh and tried to continue on from a slightly different direction.

I took a small pause and finally told him what I've wanted to since I'd met him.

"Thanks."

I was breathing sort of heavily when I finished. I had put a lot of emotion into that little paragraph, but Jake still didn't seem to even notice that I was talking to him. I didn't really have much more to say. I figured that I would just have to leave it up to Jake to realize what the truth was. But even so, there was an eerie silence over the two of us that I had to do something to break. I tried to think of something, anything else to say. And as if right on cue, the memories that I had done such a good job suppressing the past day or so started to come back. I had been so busy with the trap and Ax that I had almost forgotten what I needed to talk to Jake about. But now, at this point, all my memories came flooding back. I was about to say something when I heard Jake slowly get up.

"Tobias," he said as he sat up again and looked me straight in the eyes. His usual stone face was gone and replaced with the Jake I had first met in the bathroom at school. "Do you really mean all that?"

"Every last word," was all I could think of to say in reply.

He immediately threw his arms around me and gave me one of the firmest hugs I'd ever had. After successfully catching my breath, I began to return it as well. I could feel tears start to form in my eyes, but I pushed them away. If I started crying now, there was no telling when I'd stop. But that's when I heard the muffled sobs of Jake starting to cry into my shoulder.

As soon as I heard him start I put my hands on his shoulders, pulled him out to arms length, and said directly to his still sobbing face, "Jake, if we start crying now we might never stop. After we take care of Crayak we can just sit and cry the rest of our lives away. But for right now, we need to focus."

"You're right Tobias," he said clearing away the tears with his hand, "you're right."

We both just sat there for a few moments to get our composure back before Jake said, "Tobias, I have something I want for you to do for me."

"What is it Jake?" I asked. "You know that I'll do anything you need me too."

"It's something that I wanted to say to everyone after we left Earth, but I could never muster up the courage to actually say it," he replied. "But since we're being so open with each other now, I figure that it's now or never." He took a deep breath and continued as I started to get slightly worried at what he was about to say. "If…if I don't make it out of here alive…"

"Don't say things like that Jake," I interrupted quickly. Those are the kinds of things that slowly eat away at you. And that's not what Jake needed at this moment.

"No Tobias," he said quickly interrupting me, "this is important to me. I need you to listen."

I wanted to tell him that he could do whatever it was himself when we got back, but the look on his face made me stop and listen to what he had to say.

"If I don't make it out of here alive," he began again, "I want you to tell Cassie that it's my fault that things worked out the way they did and I'm sorry. But if she's happy then I'm happy for her too."

I just sat there for a while and stared into Jake's sad and sorrowful eyes before I decided to tell him to tell Cassie himself when we both got back. But I didn't get too far before Jake interrupted me again.

"Tobias, I want you to promise me that you'll tell her if you can."

I wanted to try and tell him again, but I knew that he wouldn't listen even if I had gotten to finish my sentence, "Sure Jake, I promise," was the only thing I had left to say.

For the first time in a while, a smile crossed his face. "Thanks," he said, looking like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. And almost as a final thought he added, "Could you also tell Ronnie to take good care of her?"

"Sure Jake," I answered, giving up on the 'tell them yourself' line, "whatever you want."

He gave me another small smile before he started to stand up with renewed energy as he said "So, you ready to go kick Crayak's butt?"

"Actually Jake," I said almost subconsciously, "since we're being so open here, I kinda wanted to ask you for your help."

He started to sit back down while my mind was screaming at itself. I can't talk to him now. I don't know what to say. I'm not ready. But the other side of my brain kept saying this is a golden opportunity. It's either now or never. You already started the conversation anyway, so go with it.

I didn't know what to do or what to listen to, but soon enough just thinking about talking about what happened was enough to bring the memories back. That's when I decided that I had to keep going.

"I know that this might seem like a weird time to talk about this," I started tentatively, "but I've been trying to ask you about it ever since we got back from Crayak's ship." I paused for another moment struggling to push myself further. Eventually though I managed to suppress the anti-talking side of my brain and continued on.

"I guess what I'm trying to ask is," I continued after a short pause, "what should I do? What should I do to stop these memories? What should I do to make myself feel like I'm not what I had become? What could I do to make myself feel better?"

Jake gave it some thought before he finally said, "Tobias, we've all been in situations like yours before. And I guess the first thing I should ask is that are you really sure that you regret what you did? Take a moment and really think about it. Was what you did all worth it?"

I think I saw what he was trying to do, but I was pretty sure that the negatives outweighed the positives. Even though I already knew that, I took a look back at it all anyway. Sure, I had been able to kill a morph capable controller by myself, which was not an easy task, and take out one of Crayak's crew as well. But everything that followed his death still didn't have any reason to have happened.

I thought about it for a little more before finally saying, "No, what I did wasn't worth it. I could've lived with the gruesome death because some times things like that happen, but what I did afterwards was just plain wrong and there is no excuse for it."

"In that case," Jake continued on, "there's only one thing that I've found that works. You have to learn something from your experience. You need to figure out what it was that lead you to do what you did and make sure that it never happens again. You'll always have that memory in the back of your head to remind you of what you did, but knowing how to prevent it from happening again will calm your mind down some. And in your case, what you should learn from your experience is to not hold in your emotions for so long. That's what took control of you, your emotions. And if you don't let them out a little bit at a time there might be a chance that something like that will happen again. As long as you're able to let out a reasonable number of your emotions, you should be fine."

I kind of stared at him for a second. He hadn't told me anything I didn't already know, but for some reason it was just what I needed to hear. Maybe it was because he said that everyone had gone through the same thing. Maybe it was just the way that he said it. Maybe I just needed to hear it come from someone else. I didn't know. It didn't make everything just magically disappear like I had thought it might, but it calmed my mind down enough to where I could think and focus. Without even really meaning to I pulled him into a soft hug and said, "I don't know why Jake, but that's exactly what I needed to hear."

"Glad I could help," he said as I slowly pulled away from him. "Now are you ready to go kick some Crayak butt?"

"Let's do it!" I said, adding a smile after I had realized what I'd just said. This is for you Rachel, I said to myself as I began to morph.