Feels Like Failure

Disclaimer: I do not own Animorphs.

I didn't get pregnant on purpose. It wasn't that I didn't want the baby, I just hadn't expected to get pregnant. But I was young and newly married and didn't take any precaution so in hindsight it's not all that surprising that it happened.

The thought of being a mother genuinely scared me to death. I still hadn't felt completely grown-up yet and didn't know how I would manage. I had heard all the horror stories of morning sickness and being awoken at all hours in the morning by an infant who simply will not stay asleep. I dragged Steve to a bookstore one night and bought every single parenting book they had. He tried to be supportive but I could tell that he found the entire thing incredibly amusing. I have to admit that I only managed to work my way through half of them and I still didn't feel like I knew what I was doing.

I managed, though. Pregnancy was an absolutely horrible experience, yes, but it was ultimately worth it and while the first few months left me almost constantly sleep-deprived, eventually things did settle down. Of course, by that point I had found myself pregnant again but at least then I knew what to expect.

Steve always used to joke that Tom was our test baby and wherever we went wrong with him we made sure to try to correct for Jake. Of course, we still made mistakes with him, too, but I'd like to think that we made fewer of them as we gained more experience.

Things were so alarming when they were younger. What if the person we hired to babysit got frustrated and shook the baby? What if they put something into their mouth that they shouldn't have and either suffocated or was poisoned? What if they got SIDS? Was putting the baby on his stomach or back the best way to avoid that? Why did the baby turn orange (that, at least, we got an answer for in the diet)? What if someone abducted them? What if I raised them to be spoiled or too shy or just plain horrible people?

Fortunately, I was one of the lucky ones and none of that happened. I'd like to think that I wasn't unreasonable or clingy about my fears but who really knows? I doubt you'd find many clingy people with enough self-awareness to be able to admit to it.

The older my boys got, the safer I felt. As they grew, they learned more and were better able to take care of themselves. I started to relax and trust that things would work out okay and that I must be an okay mother after all.

I actually believed that until only a week ago. To be fair, I did notice a change in both of my sons. I almost wish that I hadn't noticed the change in Tom because I honestly thought that the change was for the better. A Yeerk had come into my home and stolen my son and I felt that this was a good thing. The fact that I didn't know can't possibly make up for the fact that, for all practical purposes, I had preferred a Yeerk out to enslave us all to my own son.

It's just…Tom had always been a good kid and he was a wonderful older brother, always taking the time to play with Jake and trying to set a good example for him. The most trouble we ever had was with the cheating scare and he turned out not to have even done that. Still, my son was a teenager and with that came certain characterizations. Tom slept through his alarm half the time. He never remembered to call and tell us when he would be getting home. He always had to be reminded to do his chores and he put his homework off until right before bedtime.

Then, one day, things changed. He stopped arguing with us, started waking up on time, and always called and told us where he was and when he'd be getting back (even if I've since learned that the 'where' wasn't always true). He did his chores without having to be asked and got his homework done right after he came home. He even started eating healthier and got better grades. How could I not have thought that this was an improvement?

If it was really Tom, it would have been. But of course, it wasn't. It was the Yeerk trying to avoid conflict and suspicious as he worked to destroy all of humanity. All this time and I never even knew. I'm not even sure when this all started but it must have been years now. Years.

And then there's Jake. It's hard to tell which story's worse. As far as I know, he's never been a Controller but it's not like I have any way of knowing one way or another and that's not the only fate anyone with any sense would hope to avoid. He was thirteen and so I thought that the distance that was slowly springing up between him and all of us and the fact that on the rare occasions that he was home he was always tired or irritable was perfectly normal. Perfectly normal. There is nothing normal about what my son's been through.

The Yeerks have no way of knowing for sure but as far as they can tell, it was the Andalite Prince Elfangor who gave my son the ability to morph and dragged him into this hellish war. They knew children were around and might have seen something when Elfangor was being killed and the Andalite Bandits showed up only a few days later, which was why they were assumed to have been survivors of the battle. Now that we all know that they're mostly human, it seems likely it's them. According to Visser One, that's just the sort of foolishly sentimental thing that Elfangor would do.

I don't know how I feel about that. Or rather, I do but there's conflicting reactions and I'm not sure which one is stronger.

There's anger. How dare he drag my son into this? He was just a child! He was barely old enough to stop eating off of the children's menu and was still having his first crush! War is a terrible thing for anyone to get caught up in but there is nothing so horrific as a child soldier. I'm not sure how the Andalites do things but if Elfangor knew anything at all about Earth, if he actually fathered a human son, then he had to have known that. He did it anyway. What did he expect would happen?

It wasn't his fault that he landed right in front of Jake and his friends but what he did next was absolutely his fault. I'm torn on whether telling him about the Yeerks at all was a good idea. On the one hand, there was likely nothing he could have done about it and it would have terrorized and traumatized him while still leaving him helpless and unlikely to have been believed. It would have put him at risk for infestation as he was a security threat to the invasion now. Even just seeing Elfangor and fleeing before he heard anything would have made him a risk.

But if Elfangor hadn't told him anything, he would have had no reason not to tell everyone what he had seen. No reason at all not to have told Tom. The Yeerk in Tom would have taken that information and destroyed Jake. Death or infestation, he would have been shattered either way. At least if Jake knew then he could try to avoid infestation. It must not have taken long to have worked out what the Sharing really was and he could have known to stay away from that. But then he'd have to live with the fact that his brother was a Controller and not be able to do a thing about it without the Yeerks coming after us all. And him knowing wouldn't even do anything for Tom because he'd never know that Jake did. All that knowledge and only a slightly better chance of avoiding infestation…

Of course Jake got involved with the war once Elfangor gave him the power to morph. He couldn't have done otherwise. His sense of responsibility is almost overdeveloped, I think, and with the situation with Tom…But what did a group of thirteen-year-olds know about fighting a war? If I had been told about Jake and the others getting the power to morph and deciding to try to fight the Yeerks and then asked what happened, I'd guess that they either got themselves violently killed very quickly or they lived long enough for the Yeerks to infest them and gain five more morph-capable hosts. I would have thought that nothing good or useful could have possibly resulted from this.

And yet…and yet that's not what happened, not at all. That's where the relief comes in. Jake was not caught. Jake was not killed. Jake was not helpless. Somehow or other, he had learned how to become a warrior and he's been spending the last three years dealing blow after blow to the Yeerks. Virtually any major offensive they tried was countered. My son. It seems he and his friends (with at least one Andalite) are the only ones really fighting for Earth right now.

For all that I have difficulty believing that a few children could be holding back the invasion to this extent, I know that if it weren't for Jake then the Yeerks would have been able to go forth with no opposition whatsoever and who knows how much further they would have been by now? They certainly would have managed to fully take California by now.

So that's where it stands. My son, who should never have even been involved in this war, is the only reason why there's any hope at all. He can continue stopping their big moves but more and more people are infested by the day and if the Yeerks decide to come out into the open then how can he stand against their full might? I don't know. I don't think he can.

That's why I can't bring myself to completely hate Elfangor. I resent him, naturally, for making Jake a part of this but he's not the one who brought the Yeerks here and he was only trying to help. And he did help. Without Jake, the situation would truly be hopeless and that our one last hope is a bunch of teenagers might just be the most pathetic thing about this entire situation.

What does he have? A handful of morph-capable friends who if they die in morph will die for real? A colony of free Hork-Bajir who are all too reliant on their own child Seer to tell them what to do? Some way of pretending to be safe at home with us when they were really out getting themselves killed? How can they win with that?

I should have faith in Jake. I do have faith in Jake. But things look as impossible as they ever did and I don't see how Jake can win. Neither can the Yeerks. That would definitely give him the element of surprise, if he does manage to come up with something.

I tried to teach Jake chess once but he never did quite manage to learn it. He always had to be reminded of which piece could move where and had difficulty thinking beyond just one or two moves ahead. He'd do the right thing for that turn but then get taken completely by surprise when I took his own pieces.

Life isn't a game of chess and neither is war. He can have failed to learn that a few years back and still win here. I keep trying to convince myself of that but…he's so young. I don't see how he's already managed to accomplish what he has, much less how he long he can keep this up. Was it just luck? Skill? Are there even any adults involved in this? I almost hope there aren't because if there were any responsible adults around and they let Jake get involved in this then I'm going to have to kill them at some point.

The Yeerk in my head would like that. That's right, there is a Yeerk in my head. Not right now, no, but usually. Now the Yeerk needs to feed so I'm all alone in a cage at the Yeerk Pool, watching the people watching me. I wonder if Tom and Steve get this same treatment. Probably but I wouldn't know. It would appear that, despite there not being anything remarkable about me, my connection to who the Yeerks suspect is the leader of the resistance makes me an object of curiosity all the same. I don't really care what they think, though.

Jake is out there every day, alone and probably scared, trying to win a war that just can't be won. His entire family is being used against him and I just know that he's blaming himself. He shouldn't. He can't blame himself for what the Yeerks do to try to hurt him.

It's strange, when you really think about it. The Yeerks come after Steve and I because of Jake's resistance and I can't even begin to blame him for that. And yet…the fact that my son grew up to fight a desperate, insane war and I continued to punish him for his grades or his breaking curfew because I never saw it I can blame myself for. I can blame myself for the fact that I never noticed Tom's infestation when no one ever notices.

This kind of thinking won't do anyone any good. It would just amuse the Yeerk and horrify my family but I can't help it. Somehow we ended up puppets to advance the Yeerk invasion and to try to shatter Jake's resolve and I just can't believe that is one of those things that just happened.

The Yeerks bear the brunt of the blame but I have to wonder how we ended up getting in this position to begin with?

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