"Rachel! He's dead!"

The sad reality of her life was that so many contexts for "Rachel! He's dead!" existed. Hearing the words caused her mind to shuffle rapidly through possibilities like a deck of cards. Who's dead? Tobias? Jake? Marco? Ax? Cassie? Can't be Cassie, she's not a he. How did they go out? In morph, as a human…what? Am I in a battle right now and hallucinating being back in my bedroom? Is Crayak behind this? Who do I have to kill now? Wait…Sara's voice. Oh God, is someone in the house? Did they find out about us?

"What happened?" She couldn't conceal the panic as she flew down the hall and swung open the door to Sara's room. "Are you okay?"

Sara seemed surprised at her older sister's level of panic, even as she held back tears and pointed to her nightstand. "Gregory's dead!"

Rachel looked at the nightstand and instantly felt relieved. The tension in her body melted away as she noticed the goldfish floating belly-up in his bowl. She felt a twinge of guilt when she looked back into Sara's face, but she didn't feel it as strongly as she was pretty sure she should have. The facts were simple, and she hoped that one day Sara would be able to understand them. Out of all the possible contexts for "Rachel! He's dead!" the death of a family pet was one of the ones that didn't leave the world completely fucked, and that was cause for relief.

Rachel went over to Sara and put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry."

Rachel prepared herself for Sara to burst into tears and start crying on her shoulder. She knew she was no good at being a shoulder to cry on, but she was never one to turn down the call of duty. What happened instead surprised her.

A few stray tears made their way down Sara's face, but she wiped them away quickly, walking over to Gregory's bowl and gingerly poking his body. "How do you think he died?"

"I…um…what?" Rachel was thrown off-balance by Sara's bluntness.

"What do you think happened to him?" Sara asked with a mixture of curiosity and sadness that Rachel had never quite heard before.

"Well…"

Not sure what the right answer was, Rachel felt a strange connection to Gregory, staring up at them with dead eyes. She knew what it was like to be a fish, her human intellect having to fight against the animal instinct. There were times when she wanted to let the animal win; surrender the constant worry and planning for the trained focus on only the most immediate needs. Food…shelter…swim…repeat…

Sometimes, God help them all, she would tune Jake out and just coast in the water, letting the tiny but blissfully simplistic brain tell her food…shelter…swim…repeat. The battle orders were always the same, anyway...Go in first, be our battering ram, be our shield, repeat…

"I think it was pretty peaceful for him," Rachel answered Sara's curious eyes. Thinking about the times when she had had gills and had ended up on land, flopping around and feeling the oxygen start to drain from her brain, she imagined that just giving out from what had to be old age by now and floating belly-up in your bowl really wasn't so bad.

Out of all the horrible, unimaginable, screamingly painful ways to die, Gregory had lucked out.

"Should we flush him?" Sara asked. Rachel did a double-take and wondered just who this little girl in front of her was.

"Well, I mean…no. We don't have to flush him. He was your pet. We could have a funeral and…"

Sara shook her head. "No. Let's flush him."

"Uh, okay, it's totally cool if you want to do that. He was your pet. Can I ask why?"

Sara shrugged. "Gregory was a goldfish. Isn't that what you're supposed to do when goldfish die?"

Rachel couldn't help but smile and think that maybe someday, when this war was out in the open, she wouldn't have to worry so much about Sara. Maybe Sara would be okay.

She scooped Gregory out of his bowl and headed for the bathroom. "Come on then, let's do this." Sara followed close behind her.

Rachel opened her hand and held the cold, scaly little body out to Sara. "Do you want me to drop him in or do you want to do it?"

Sara reached out for Gregory, hesitated, and then reached out again. "I'll do it."

"Okay." Rachel handed her the body.

"Bye, Gregory," Sara said softly as she dropped him in the toilet.

Rachel flushed, then held her sister's hand as they watched the small orange body spiral downward.