Authors note:
Takes place between books 49 (The Diversion) and 50 (The Ultimate). Not beta'd, we die like Elfangor. Obviously I own nothing. Not the Buffy gag that I cribbed from a couple other fics I've read or the adorable term Scoop Boys, from the fantastic Morph Club podcast. Nothing.
CW: transparently edited teenage-level swears, implied sexual activity and standard Animorphs-level morphing body horror.
I thought it was a crime that we never got a real Rachel POV book after the Animorphs identities and then the entire war are uncovered so I wanted to explore where she'd be mentally during that time. Our girl goes through SO MUCH in those last five books and I really wanted to get into her head. I do my best to keep the pop culture references time period specific, but I may have name dropped a couple Pokemon that didn't exist yet, and some plotlines from TV shows that maybe came a little after 2000, where I'm assuming this takes place.
Animorphs: The Understanding
My name is Rachel. Just Rachel, although honestly? At this point, I guess it really doesn't matter anymore, does it? You've probably already heard the news. I was missing. So were my sisters, Jordan and Sara and our mother. Even if my Dad wasn't a primetime news anchor for a major network in Philadelphia, people tend to notice when white, suburban girls go missing, let alone a well known, successful lawyer with her name and picture on newspaper ads and billboards all over town. She runs a law firm with her partners and her last name is literally in the name of the firm. Or at least she did.
Cassie's parents had jobs and lives too, before they went missing. Cassie's mom was the head veterinarian at The Gardens, and her dad ran the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center out of their barn on their property. I guess I always thought it was cool that my mom was a big shot lawyer and my dad was a famous reporter. But Cassie? Cassie was always so proud of her parents. They were everything she wanted to be when she grew up. And now? Now, like us, they were missing. Tobias ' mother who didn't remember him was missing. Jake was missing. Marco and his parents were dead.
Of course none of us were really missing or dead, although honestly it felt like we were. We were refugees now, all of us living in the secret free Hork Bajir colony. What's a Hork Bajir? I guess I buried the lead a bit, didn't I?
We're the Animorphs, my friends and I. Don't bother looking it up, it's not a real word, not an official term. Marco came up with it, to put a name to our little group. For the past three years, we've been fighting a secret war for the future of the entire planet.
The Yeerks, an alien race of intelligent, parasitic slugs are waging war on planet Earth, and the worst part? They're winning. The Yeerks in their natural state don't seem like much. Blind, mute little slugs. You probably wouldn't give them a second thought, let alone think of the Yeerks as a threat. But you'd be dead wrong. The Yeerks enslave sentient beings by entering their ears and controlling their brains. Once a Yeerk is in your head, you are nothing but a prisoner in your own body. Controllers, that's what we call them, are helpless as the Yeerk decides when you move, when you speak, what you say. They have access to your memories and your personality. They pass as you so flawlessly that no one would ever know. Not your parents, not your siblings, not your closest friends. They've already enslaved a dozen alien races and now they want us. They want earth. But we, the Animorphs are fighting them. A dying alien Prince gave us the power to morph, to become any animal we touch. It may not sound like much, but it's enabled us, six kids to somehow keep the Yeerks at bay for all this time. Six kids against the entire Yeerk Empire.
Jake, my cousin is our leader. He makes the split second calls that no one else can or wants to. He never asked to be in charge, and that's why he makes such a good leader. He's not the type of guy who just barks orders, and for the big decisions, he always puts it up to a vote. But like all of us, this war has changed Jake. For every choice he leaves up to the group, he makes three more in secret, moving his friends around like chess pieces. Using us. But it's war, you know? I don't like it or the way it makes me feel, but I realized that someone has to do it, and our someone is Jake. He's our rock. Strong and unwavering. At least he was. Since the Yeerks got his parents he's been…different.
Cassie, my best friend and Marco, Jake's best friend, they're our brain trust, our strategists. Of course I'd never admit any of this to Marco's face. The little worm would never let me live it down. But Cassie is the smartest person I know. She's our animal expert as well as our psychologist. She understands what makes people tick. She could be really, really dangerous if she wasn't such a pacifist. But despite her beliefs, she's got as much blood on her hands as the rest of us. Cassie keeps us human. Marco keeps us safe. His paranoia and distrust of everyone and everything has made him our head of security. He also sees the big picture and can be ruthless when Cassie can't. They're the reason we've managed to stay alive as long as we have.
Tobias, my boyfriend, is our scout. Before the war, he was a cute, dreamy boy with his head in the clouds and a seriously messed up home life. He doodled in a sketchpad and wrote little poems and stories to escape. Now, Tobias lives in the clouds. He's what the Andalites call a nothlit. Tobias is a red-tailed hawk. Just saying that makes me wince but I'm coming to terms with the fact that it's true. Tobias stayed in morph for longer than the two hour limit and now he's a hawk, permanently. At least he was until an all powerful but cowardly alien called an Ellimist gave Tobias his morphing ability back and even twisted time and reality around so Tobias could acquire and morph his human self. But only for two hours at a time, any longer and Tobias will be trapped as a normal human and out of the fight. It's something we've fought over in the past and I'm sure it's something we'll fight about again. But honestly, right now? I'm glad Tobias didn't listen to me and stayed a hawk, because right now, we need him. Tobias is our eyes and aerial support. He's lived as a red-tailed hawk for three years and he's the best flier I've ever seen. Tobias is an absolute terror in the skies. A few days ago, he out flew a trained Yeerk helicopter pilot. It was amazing.
Rounding out our little group are me and Ax. All six of us are soldiers, warriors. But Ax and I? We are DANGEROUS. We're the heavies. The ringers. Ax is the precision, the finesse. He's deadlier with his tail blade than any human with a sword. In close quarters he can't be beat. And me? I'm the muscle. I'm the firepower. Ax is the slash and dash and I'm the smash and crash. If Ax is a sniper rifle, then I'm a grenade. A bazooka. A tank. I've got the biggest, baddest morphs and I'm not afraid to u s e them. Ax is Aximili Esgarouth Isthil, the younger brother of Elfangor, the Andalite prince who gave us the morphing power. Ax was just an aristhe when we met him, an Andalite cadet. The Andalites are the reason the Yeerks were unleashed on the galaxy. They gave them the technology to travel the stars and now their entire race is fighting to correct that mistake. Ax is Tobias' shorm, his best friend and also weirdly enough, his uncle? Elfangor wasn't just Ax's Andalite brother, he was also Tobias' human father. How? The Ellimist. Don't get me started. Sometimes I think of all the aliens we've met since this all started, I hate the Ellimist the most. Even more than the yeerks. He could end this entire f*cking war if he wanted to, but like I said earlier. Coward.
So that's it. For three years, the six of us have waged a guerilla war against Visser Three (now Visser One) and the Yeerk forces on earth. The worst part is we've been doing it in total secret. Which meant lying to our parents and families. And going to school. It's kinda funny when you think about it. The first and last line of defense for the entire human race still had to do homework. We graduated middle school and started high school and I didn't even care. The old me would have cared. The old me would have joined clubs, maybe even tried out for cheerleading. The old me loved shopping and fashion and gymnastics and boys. It's not that I don't love those things anymore, but it's kind of hard to focus on things like what's in this season when you're fighting a war for the sake of the entire human race. Plus, like I said. I have a boyfriend.
Tobias and Ax were in an open field at the center of the Hork Bajir Valley. I walked through the soft grass barefoot, enjoying the sensation. We never did figure out how to morph shoes, and now that we didn't have to hide anything anymore, I figured what's the point? Of course that wasn't really true. Hiding is exactly what we're doing. I watched Tobias and despite everything, smiled. Loren, Tobias' estranged mother sat in the grass, next to Walter and Michelle, Cassie's parents. They took turns petting Champ, Loren's dog while they watched the scene in front of them.
Hooved feet moved noiselessly through the grass. Thin blue legs crossed and bent gracefully in the sweet morning air. *THWACK! THWACK! CLACK! CLACK!* Strong, whip-like tails cracked through the air as wicked, razor sharp tail blades made of bone clapped and parried. Two identical Andalites circled each other, locked in a sparring exercise that almost looked like a dance. It was beautiful and it was dangerous. Before I was a warrior, I was a gymnast. I appreciated grace AND danger. The whole thing was pretty hot, honestly.
{Excellent. You have been practicing!} One of the identical Andalites said through thought speak. It's a silent language you hear in your mind. Although he was talking to Tobias, Ax was broadcasting it for all of us to hear. He was proud.
CRACK! THWAP! CLACK!*
{What, you think I spend all my time riding thermals and catching mice, Ax-Man?} The other identical Andalite said back. Identical that is, unless you knew what to look for.
Sometime last year, Tobias had acquired Ax for…for a mission that I do my best not to think about. He was a perfect copy down to the strands of DNA, but over the years I've gotten to know Ax, and I know Tobias better than anyone. Ax held his head and shoulders high and stiff. Tobias, even in Andalite morph stood with a bit of a slouch, like he did in his human…morph. I hated to think of his natural body in those terms but if things between Tobias and I were going to work, I had to. And with the way everything else around us felt like it was falling apart, I really, really needed Tobias and I to work.
Things were…well. Bad. Like, out of control, tailspin crash and burn bad. For the past three years, we were able to make the Yeerks believe that we were a small group of Andalite warriors. "The Andalite Bandits", they called us. In all the universe, only Andalites have the power to morph. It's a technology they invented. In all the universe, the only beings who had this power were the Andalites, five humans and one Yeerk. Visser One. The only Andalite Controller. So it was only natural that they'd assume we were Andalites. That instead of just Ax, six Andalites had survived the destruction of the Dome ship in orbit over earth. But now, after all this time, the Yeerks had finally figured it out. They used our blood left behind in battles to find us. They had our names, our families. So we had no choice. We told our families the truth and got them out before the Yeerks could get them. Well, most of them.
Now, we lived here in the secret Hork Bajir Valley hidden way up high in the mountains. All of us. Although I guess "living" is being generous. We were alive. We were free. That was something. But we didn't have running water, besides the natural streams flowing through the valley. Natural spring mountain water, I mean, that's what they bottle and charge almost as much as a Coke for, right?
At least we had Ax, who was something of a technological genius as far as human standards go (don't get him started) and Marco's dad who was a brilliant engineer. So we had electricity, we had internet, we even had cable on Ax's tv. Well, some kind of super hacked every channel-satellite cable.
But it wasn't enough. Everyone was FREAKED. My mom, my sisters. Cassie's parents. Marco's parents had actually already been here a while. His dad was adjusting and his mom..well. His mom used to be the host of the former Visser One. Eva killed the Yeerk that had imprisoned her in her own mind with her bare hands and now she was free. It was kind of a relief, honestly. It meant we had an adult to back us up when we told our parents the unbelievable truth. But everyone was tense and at each other's throats. Everyone except Jake…
See, we weren't able to get ALL of our parents out in time. Jake's parents, my Uncle Steve and Aunt Jean, they were controllers now. Like Jake's brother Tom. And the worst part was, it was because of a call Jake made. He's been beating himself up over it ever since.
It made me angry. This was it! Game time. D-Day. Do or frickin DIE and when we need our leader more than ever, he falls apart. I blew fire out of my nose and tried to swallow my anger. Jake needed to snap out of it. Cassie needed to grow a backbone. She and her parents needed to understand how f*cking DIRE the situation was. My MOTHER needed to stop fighting me over every little thing and just shut up and LISTEN to what we were telling her. Sara needed to stop crying and asking when we were going home and where Daddy is. Daddy… I tried not to think about my Dad. He lives on the other side of the country but it didn't matter. The Yeerks probably had him by now. I needed my family to understand, but I knew that yelling at them wasn't going to accomplish anything right now and unfortunately, every time I tried to talk to them, that's what ended up happening. Yelling.
I kept walking, past the shorm session, back towards the camp. I passed Cassie, helping Peter and Jara organize the new cabins. I passed the open air hut that we'd begun to think of as the war room. Jake, Eva and Toby were talking inside. The leader of the Animorphs, the sort of former leader of the Yeerk invasion of earth and the leader of the Hork Bajir Freedom Fighters. I heard something about war games. I'd worry about it later.
I was on a bit of a mission of my own, today. Tensions were HIGH and it seemed to me like no one was focusing on the important thing. One of the biggest obstacles we faced in this war, keeping up the facades of our human lives was gone. Now, finally we had no responsibilities other than fighting and WINNING this war. All the Animorphs were worried about different things and we needed to get on the same page. Normally, I'd leave it to Jake to get us there, this was his thing. He was good at it. I tried leading once and it…well, it didn't go well. But if one of the Berenson cousins couldn't get it done, than the other would. Oops. Well, f*ck it. Like I said earlier, doesn't really matter anymore.
My first stop was Ax's scoop. Andalites don't like small or enclosed spaces, so their homes aren't like ours. There wasn't a door or anything, it had a roof but it was wide open like a really wide, very shallow cave. Ax had built the roof out of tarp, back when he was living in the woods behind Cassie's barn, he had covered it with leaves and stuff to camouflage it. Ax didn't have a lot of possessions, but the few he had were treasured. He had a tv, an I-Mac that he STILL owes me for, and some framed pictures of his favorite snacks. I'm not kidding. Cinnabon, nachos, pizza, chocolate ice cream. They're ads from magazines and comic books he got from Marco that he framed and proudly displayed. See, Andalites don't have mouths, or taste buds. They graze on grass through the bottoms of their hooves. Don't ask. Trust me. Anyway, whenever Ax morphs human he gains the sense of taste and it's literally his favorite thing in the world. Sometimes I think the only reason Ax is as dedicated to stopping the Yeerk invasion of Earth is to protect the cinnamon bun. I'm serious.
Besides a love of food court cuisine, Ax has picked up something else here on earth as well. A roommate. Sort of. Since faking his own death and moving to the Valley months before the rest of us, Marco had taken to staying with Ax part time. Part time slowly became almost all the time. At first he said it was so he could be closer to the rest of us, closer to the fight. Well, now we ALL lived in the Hork Bajir Valley and Marco STILL spent more time in Ax's scoop than he did in his parent's cabin. I think it's partly due to the fact that since reuniting, Peter and Eva have been like lovesick teenagers again. It's honestly kind of cute. The other reason was currently occupying his attention.
"OOOOOOOH! WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEA??"
I closed in on the scoop, which was now littered with all of Marco's garbage. His PlayStation was hooked up to Ax's tv. Comic books, soda cans and cd cases cluttered the floor. Marco was stomach down on his bean bag chair watching cartoons with my little sisters, Sara and Jordan. Jordan is fourteen, only two years younger than me. Sara, the baby of the family is ten. They weren't happy here, and honestly who could blame them, but at least they weren't being a pain right now.
They were all watching TV together, my three annoying little siblings. Well, Marco wasn't really my brother, but he annoyed me like one. He also wasn't really watching SpongeBob either. He was pretending to watch, while he mindlessly flipped through Sara's binder of Pokemon cards. Sara was teaching Marco and Tobias how to play Pokemon cards and they were teaching her and Jordan to play Magic the Gathering. While he pretended to watch tv, Marco was also pretending not to notice Jordan pretending not to stare at him. Unlike me and Sara, who were natural blondes, Jordan had inherited our mother's dark hair and apparently, her poor choice in men. Besides my idiot sister, my idiot friend Marco also pretended not to be watching his mother going over plans with Jake and Toby.
"Hey nuggets," I said, my hands on my hips. "I need to borrow Marco for a second."
"ONE!" Sara counted, and grinned at me. I ignored her.
"Should I go tell To-biiiiii-assss?" My jealous little gremlin of a sister croaked. I rolled my eyes. I needed Jordan on my side, but I still wasn't going to ignore that.
"Calm down, butt munch, or I'll tell SOMEONE what I read in your diary last week."
She barely flinched. "Like you even KNOW. You're too busy turning into a fat smelly warthog to fight aliens or whatever."
"Hm, you're probably right. I totally don't know that you used a Lisa Frank dolphin sticker on the bottom of the page and I have absolutely no clue that you drew his name on the top in a purple jelly pe-"
"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UUPPPPPP!!!" The little demon screeched, knowing she'd been beat. Look, it's true I was busy fighting a war, but a big sister still needs her leverage.
"C'mon." I said cooly to Marco, but in a tone that told him he didn't have a choice.
"Aww, and here we were just about to find out if Mr. Krabs was feeling it yet." Marco smiled a dopey grin as he pushed himself off his bean bag up to his feet. "Hey do you think Plankton and Crayak are related?"
"C'mon," I repeated, ignoring him and already walking away from the scoop.
"So what's up, Xena?" Marco huffed as his short little legs had to pump to keep up with my longer strides.
"We need to talk," I said simply. "This sh*t's a mess."
Marco nodded, suddenly no longer smiling. His constant barrage of dumb jokes hid the fact that he understood all too well just how bad the situation was. He always had. "Morph?" he asked.
I nodded. Besides Andalites who have no natural mouths, we could only access thought speech while in morph. It was the best way, the ONLY way to have a truly private conversation. And these days, you really never could be too careful.
Bones cracked and twisted grotesquely but painlessly as my nose melted away and my jaw stretched and grew into a hard yellow beak. My heels burst through my skin, sharp and pointed as my toes fused together and my knees snapped and reversed. My hair turned snow white and sprouted into feathers. My body shrank as my skin itched. You think growing feathers is weird? Let me tell you. The weirdest part about morphing a bird is the sensation of your bones hollowing themselves out. It's a feeling so alien I didn't even realize what it was for months until Tobias was talking about the bone structure of birds and how it enables flight.
Soon I was fully transformed, my trusty bald eagle morph imposing and stoic. Marco was a much smaller but more agile osprey. We all had bird of prey morphs, but while the rest of the Animorphs all had smaller, faster raptors, I was the only one with a big, powerful eagle. Like I said. I had the biggest, baddest morphs.
After a few moments of struggling to get off the ground and into the air we flew a little before landing in a tall tree. A better place to have an out of the way conversation than to do it while circling in the air overhead, for everyone to see.
The bottom of the tree had been stripped of bark, the natural food source of the Hork Bajir. Their only food source. Hork Bajir were the scariest, most deadly looking creatures you'd ever see. An Andalite's tail blade was fearsome sure, but the Hork Bajir were covered head to toe in blades. Despite this, they were vegetarians, herbivores I guess, if you were to ask Cassie's mom. But we've gotten to know these Hork Bajir pretty well over time. When I first saw them step out of a bug fighter in that dark construction site, I never thought I'd one day become friends with a Hork Bajir, let alone live with a whole colony of them. But then, nothing about my life has been predictable since that night.
{So what are we gonna do about this?} Marco asked me.
I sighed. {I don't know but we need to figure it out soon, we are OUT of time. Everyone's down there playing Swiss Family Robinson and trying to hand hold our parents through this when we NEED to be planning our attack. Our little fight isn't the only thing that isn't a secret anymore. You think Visser Three is gonna just keep hiding from humans now that he knows he's been fighting us this whole time??}
Marco cocked his bird head to the side and stared at me, a look I'm all too familiar with although usually it's not Marco giving it to me. {Swiss Family Robinson? Excuse me?}
Now I was getting ticked off. {I…I don't know!} I exploded, embarrassed. {It..it's some old movie about a family that gets ship wrecked on an island and have to build a shelter and learn to survive! But see THIS IS MY POINT! That's not what's important here!}
Marco laughed in my head. {You've never seen the Untouchables, or Miller's Crossing or The Rock but you reference Swiss Family Robinson??}
If it was anyone else I would have yelled and maybe given up, but I knew that Marco understood exactly where we were and what our situation was. This was just how he processed problems too messed up for kids our age to be worrying about.
I was feeling generous so I decided to humor him. {Um, excuse you. I've SEEN the Rock. Don't tell Tobias, but I'd LOVE to let him show me what he's cooking.}
Marco actually laughed genuinely. {Oh my god, you truly are beyond saving, Rachel. Not the Rock the wrestler, the Rock the MOVIE. Sean Connery?? Hello! Nick CAGE?! HELLO!? CLAIRE FORLANI?! I know we've been busy but you could at LEAST watch a movie from this decade som-}
{IT DOESN'T MATTER!!} I yelled, in my best Rock impression.
He gave me that look again. {Did I know you watch wrestling? Have we ever talked about this?}
I laughed. {Of COURSE I watch wrestling. My dad and I used to watch Monday Night Raw together every week, and he always took us to shows whenever they were in town. Free tickets through work.}
{Somehow,} Marco said, sounding kind of amazed, {this isn't the least bit surprising. I bet you think you're Sable, don't you?}
If I hadn't been in bird morph I would have made a face. {SABLE?!? Puh-leeze. I bet you'd love that you little perv. As if. I'm CHYNA. Now c'mon. I meant what I said earlier. We don't have TIME for this, Marco.}
{Yeah, yeah I know. The Rock's a chump anyway. Everyone knows Goldberg's the man.}
{MARCO!}
{I know, I know! Look,} he said, his tone shifting and the jokes slipping away. {I already tried talking to him. But…I don't know. It's Jake. As much as he doesn't talk about it, his family has been his constant. I should have seen this coming, remember when Tom was trying to kill their dad?}
I did remember. I had never seen Jake be so reckless, so uncaring about our rules that have kept us alive all these years. I'd never seen him act like such a loose cannon, like such a…well. Me. {Yeah,} I sighed. {That was bad. It was like he forgot how to think logically, he was pure emotion.}
{And in war, emotion gets you killed.} Marco said coldly. {Which…brings us to the other issue…} He was being careful, respectful but I knew what he meant and worse, I knew he was right.
{I don't…I don't know how to make her see.} I said. {Cassie's so fricking smart but HOW does she not get that we can't play with kid gloves anymore. We're talking about saving the entire human race, and she acts like she's coming at it from a morality point of view but…}
{But how much of that is her wanting to do the right thing and how much of that is her wanting to spare herself from doing what needs to be done?} Marco said sadly.
{Exactly.} I said, uncomfortably. This conversation was veering into dangerous territory and I knew it would when I started, but still. It made me uneasy.
My friends think I'm fearless. Marco calls me Xena Warrior Princess. But I'm not fearless. I'd be dead by now if I was fearless. Fear is useful. Fear keeps you alive. A warrior knows how to both overcome and use their fear to win a battle. But battle wasn't the only thing that I was afraid of. I've never been good at…talking about my feelings. Not with my mom, not with my sisters. Not with my dad. Before the war, Cassie was the only person who could get me to open up at all. But now, I had Tobias as well. More so, these days than Cassie.
Earlier I said this war had changed us. The thing that scares me the most though, is that I'm not sure if it's actually changed me. This person that I am now, I think I've always been her. I think I used to just go through life with a mask on, because why would a 13 year old blonde, white girl from the suburbs need to be anything but that? Why would she ever need to think about doing anything it takes to stay alive and keep the people she loves safe? Why would she need to worry about what lines she would or wouldn't cross and how to carry the weight of having crossed those lines?
Cassie is the smartest person I know. She's our animal expert, but also our psychologist. Cassie knows what makes people tick. And as this war goes on, I'm scared that she's been learning what really makes me tick. She's my best friend and we love each other but, but it's so hard to be around someone who can see past your mask and doesn't like what they see. Someone you know so well that you can see yourself reflected in their eyes. You can see yourself not the way you see you, but the way they see you. And it horrifies you.
Of course I didn't say any of this to Marco, but then, this was why I chose to have this talk with him. Marco and I, we were never close. Before the war, he was my cousin's best friend. It's not like Jake and I hung out all the time, but we were cousins who grew up near each other and we were the same age. So we were around each other a lot. Plus he was crushing on Cassie and vice versa, so we obviously were in each other's orbits. But I never would have called Marco my friend. He was loud, obnoxious and so obviously had a crush on me, just like he so obviously had a crush on every cute girl with a heartbeat who didn't spit in his face on sight. And even a couple who did. But now? Now we were comrades in arms. Fellow warriors, and despite everything, friends.
See, Cassie wasn't the only person who could see behind my mask. These days, I think everyone can but for a while, it seemed like it was just Cassie and Tobias. And Marco. I'm not a fool. I know I scare Marco. I scare me, too. But Marco sees the big picture. He sees the straight line, as he calls it. Marco understands what needs to be done in war. He doesn't like it, but he understands. And he knows why I do it. He knows I do it so the rest of them don't have to. Cassie knows it too, but it doesn't change the way she looks at me. The way her eyes wash over in pity and fear and…disgust.
Out of all the Animorphs, out of all the people I've ever known and probably will ever know, only one person has ever seen me, all of me. Only one person has ever seen the mask and the face behind it, understood it, accepted it and loved me unconditionally anyway. Tobias. Sweet, gentle Tobias. Only he knew what it was like to live with two people at war inside you. Only he knew what it meant to have to put aside the things you want to think and believe about yourself to stay alive, to stay in the fight. Only Tobias could love me unconditionally even when it seemed like I could only love him if he were human. How I, Rachel, the "bloodthirsty" warrior could have the gall to tell him I could only love him if he could leave this war behind, leave me to be who he knew this war would make me. And still. Every night and every morning, he came. He flew to my window. He talked when I wanted to talk. He kept me company in silence when I couldn't talk. He stared at me with the fierce eyes of a predator and the soft heart of an artist. He kissed me with tender lips and stroked my hair with shaky, unfamiliar hands. He loved me unconditionally and I'm still human, still Rachel, because of it. Despite everything, I can still live with myself because at the end of the day, Tobias loves me, and for that? For that I love him. Unconditionally, like I always should have.
{They scare me, you know.} Marco said suddenly, breaking the silence and startling me out of my introspection. {Jake and Cassie?}, he continued. {They scare me. You and Ax and Tobias, I get. See we do what needs to be done. We hit what we need to hit. Accomplish the goal. Straight line.} He paused. {Jake and Cassie aren't like us. No straight line. Their lines go back and forth and in and out and back around again so you don't know where they're going. We think and move in a straight line. Jake and Cassie think and move in a spider web. Despite what you tell me daily, I'm not an idiot,} if we hadn't been in morph, his face would have pulled into a huge, self mocking grin. {I know we need people like Jake and Cassie in a war. We wouldn't have lasted this long, accomplished as much as we have without people who were capable of using others, manipulating people to get the outcomes they know we need. I get it. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. It makes me uncomfortable. Uneasy.}
And in that moment, I understood. Of all people, it took Marco to make me see. Because see, I agreed with Marco. I felt the same way. Those parts of Jake and Cassie, they made me uncomfortable too. They made me angry. But I knew it was necessary. And I realized that's how they saw me. I made them uneasy. I made them uncomfortable. But war is messy and the Animorphs NEEDED a Rachel. If any of us didn't understand that, we probably wouldn't still be here.
{I'll talk to Jake.} I said. {I don't know if it'll accomplish anything, but there are some things I need to say to him. Things he needs to hear right now, that I've never told him, things that need to come from me.}
Marco nodded his little osprey head. I knew he understood. So that was it. This was the talk I needed to have with him, to make sure we were on the same page. We rarely voted differently, despite how often we bickered, but it was good to feel validated. This wasn't the only thing I needed to talk to him about though. This next part might be even harder, and now, now I was getting really nervous. Like I said, I don't do feelings very well, ESPECIALLY with Marco. I don't do feelings with Marco EVER, and I know we both like it that way. So one heart to heart with Marco was about all I could handle, and I knew I didn't want to do this again. Now or never.
{So,} I said. {You've been hanging out with Tobias a lot lately.}
His head shot up. He knew we had covered what we needed to and he wasn't expecting it.
{Uh, yeah.} Marco said, unsure of where this was headed, and with more than a little trepidation. {Me, Tobias and Ax. The Freaks & Geeks Squad. The Scoop Boys.}
I laughed. {Oh my god.}
{Like I said,} his tone shifted again, a little sad {Jake…well. Jake kinda makes me uneasy. I don't mean it to be harsh, but I still need a little normalcy you know? Whatever that means. Just a crumb to keep me from going completely off the rails insane. And for a while now, Jake just doesn't seem to think or care about anything but the war. And again, I GET it. He's doing everything he can to keep us all alive but I just… I need that crumb of normalcy, you know?}
{And hanging out with a four eyed, knife tailed mouthless alien centaur and his telepathic bird nephew is your idea of normalcy??} I jabbed.
{A tiny, miniscule, microscopic Helmacron toast crumb.}
I laughed. {Well, I'm glad. Tobias and I…we had a long talk the other night, after we saved his mom and brought her here.} Marco's head tilted slightly. He was trying to figure out where I was going with this. {We're going to try to make this work.} I said, almost defiantly. {If we make it out of this war. Really try to make it work. It's just, everything right now is so f*cked up and tense and I'm so worried about what's going to happen next and how it'll shake out that I feel like I'm going to explode…and yet…} I was way, way, WAY out of my depth now but I had gone past the point of no return. No choice but to force myself forward. {I look at Tobias and you and it gives me hope, you know? Before the war, the two of you had it the hardest. Unlike the rest of us, the two of you knew what it was like to hurt, to live through tragedy and hardship. To have the strength to keep going. And now, everything's crumbling apart and yet…}
{We got our families back.} Marco said, he got it. He knew what I was thinking.
{Against all odds your mom is not only alive, but free. Tobias' mom is alive and, yeah she doesn't remember him or Elfangor but…but he has a mother again. He has family, in Ax. He told me he never had a best friend before. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine what it would have been like to go through all those years if you didn't have Jake? If I didn't have Cassie. I see Ax teaching Tobias about Andalite culture and I see a sparkle in his eyes when you two nerds play magic cards and I…} C'mon Rachel. You can do this. Just do it. {Tobias has gone through so much sh*t in his life, and to see him laughing, filled with joy as he tells me about staying up all night in Ax's scoop writing Star Trek fanfiction with you and watching Battlestar 5 or whatever it is,}
Marco laughed. {BABYLON 5. And Battlestar Galactica, heathen.}
{God, WHATEVER!} I laughed back. {Anyway. I know you two didn't always get along, and...I'm just really glad he has friends now, is what I'm trying to say. Even if his friends are the most embarrassing geeks I've ever seen in my life.}
Marco laughed. I laughed. Then, after a while of the two of us just sitting there perched on a branch high up in a tree, he said, {This is so weird.}
{What the fact that your friends are a bird and an alien and somehow you're all still just nerdy teen dweebs?}
{No not that. This. Us. You being nice to me. This is f*cking weird.}
I chuckled softly. {Yeah it's pretty f*cking weird. Let's not do this again.}
{Deal, Xena.}
{I frelling told you, Marco. I'm Chyna.} I said, giving him a gift.
His head moved. The look again. He took the bait. {Frelling?? Um, hi pot? This is kettle here. YOU watch Farscape??}
It was a shame Marco and I had established such a distinct relationship with each other. For the first time in what felt like days, I was genuinely having fun. {Tobias and I watch it together. It's pretty cool. Aeryn Sun is a bad*ss.}
{I swear, the things you two watch. Do you know he tried to make me and Ax watch Felicity once?}
I gasped, mockingly. {I'll kill him! Felicity is OUR show. Well he's yours now, Marco. Want me to tell you where he likes to be preened?}
{Oh no, no, no. I'd swim a lap in the Yeerk pool before I willingly watch Felicity. Now, Charmed? That's a different story. Alyssa Milano! Rawr.}
{Oh my god! He's Charmed cheating on me too? I'll deep fry his a*s.} Im glad I was in eagle morph, or else I wouldn't be able to hide my smile. I had been dreading this, but it went better than I could have possibly imagined. {Hey Marco?}
{Yeah, Xena?}
{You know I'll kill you if you touch my sister, right?}
{Oh, Jesus Christ! Just because I signed up to fight the Yeerk Empire with five other idiot teens with a death wish, you think I'd be stupid enough to date a Berenson girl?? Please. I'm the SMART one, remember?}
I chuckled silently to myself. It was obvious Marco had a crush on me, if not now then at least at one point. But maybe…too obvious? This whole back and forth we had today, he could have easily made a joke about me body slamming him like Chyna, but he didn't. I never really noticed it until Cassie said something to me a while back. Something cryptic and vague, about how Marco only flirted with me in front of everyone, when he had an audience and never in private. Something about the way he acted around and looked at Ax sometimes. But that…that was a bridge too far for me and Marco. That was uncharted territory and I was absolutely not the one to map that out for him.
{Besides, do you realize the level of game it takes to pull a Berenson girl?} Marco jibed. {We're talking dinosaur nerd, star trek geek stuck in the body of a red freaking tailed hawk with a blonde CoverGirl model girlfriend level of game. I'm the cutest Animorph on the planet, but I'm not an Ellimist, Rachel.}
My thought speak laugh came out in a harsh bark. {What can I say? I'm a sucker for extinct monster facts and mouse breath.}
It took less than three seconds after returning to camp for Marco to be under siege by Sara and her Pokemon binder. "MARCOMARCOMARCO!" she chanted as she shoved a sizable stack of plastic sleeved cards into his hands. "Look I made you a deck! Now will you help me make one for Tobias?? What kind of Pokemon would he want??"
Marco, to his credit, didn't miss a beat, despite the fact that he was an only child and completely new to little sisters. "Dinosaurs and birds," he said confidently. "There, this guy. Tyranitar? He looks like a T-Rex. And this one…Lairon? Pidgey, of course, and all the evolutions. Oh this metal bird for sure. And uh….these two."
Sara made a face as she inspected the cards Marco was pointing at. "Ursaring and Donphan?? But they aren't dinosaurs OR birds. Donphans cute but Urasing is uggo. Tediursa is cuter."
Marco chuckled and ruffled Sara's hair. "Trust me, squirt. The big bear and the elephant. He'll love it."
I rolled my eyes at the dweebs and turned to find Jordan, less than a foot away from me and glaring at me, a look I'm told is hereditary. "Hey," I said. "You got a minute? I need t-"
"Did. You. Tell. HIM???" Her voice was hard. Jordan was pissed. This would take a delicate hand.
"Of course I didn't tell him anything. Marco can suck a butt. Sisters before misters, always." She softened a little. But just a little. "Walk with me?"
Jordan nodded and fell into place next to me. We hadn't been able to talk yet, not really. Since everything came out and we brought them here to the valley. She got the same de-briefing that everyone else did, but this would be our first one on one talk. Ugh. And I STILL had to talk to Jake. This was going to be a really, REALLY long day. Give me a battle before a heart to heart any day of the week. But it needed to get done, if we were going to move forward in this war.
"Rachel." Jordan said suddenly. "Why didn't you tell me?" She was angry, but also….hurt? She looked like she was about to start crying. F*ck.
I sighed. "I wanted to, Jor. I really, really wanted to, but"
"BUT WHAT?!" She cried out, tears pooling in her eyes. "COULDN'T TELL YOUR STUPID LITTLE SISTERS?! I'M ONLY T W O YEARS YOUNGER THAN YOU! IM ALREADY OLDER THAN YOU WERE WHEN YOU STARTED FIGHTING! WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH?! WHY CAN'T YOU TRUST ME??"
I didn't mean to yell back at her, it wasn't what I needed to do just then, but I hate being emotionally ambushed like that and she knew it. "YOU THINK I DIDN'T WANT TO, YOU LITTLE BRAT?! YOU THINK I LIKED KEEPING IT SECRET?!" I took a breath. "Look. We couldn't trust ANYONE. We had and still have no way of knowing who is and isn't a controller. The only reason we told you now, the only reason we knew you couldn't be one of them was because they found out who we were. They thought we were Andalites this whole time and that was the only thing keeping us safe. Besides, even when we brought you all here, we weren't a hundred percent sure. We are now but that's only because everyone's been here for at least three days and no one has a dead Yeerk falling out of their heads."
"Yeah right," Jordan said dismissively, obviously not convinced.
"Tom was one," I said simply. "Before they got Aunty Jean and Uncle George. Before we even knew what Yeerks were. Tom's been one for years."
That stopped her cold. "W…what? But we saw Tom all the time! Thanksgiving, Passover, Hanukkah…"
I nodded, solemnly. "That's why we had to keep it so secret, Jor. If Tom's Yeerk caught even the slightest sniff that we were on to him, it would have been all over."
"Yeah well, you're still a b*tch."
"HEY! LANGUAGE!"
"SEE?!" Jordan exploded. "THIS is what I mean!! You still treat me like I'm some dumb little kid. I get thinking that Sarah might spill the beans but you couldn't even trust ME?! You're BARELY older than me, Rachel."
"Jordan," I said, feeling the anger drain out of me. "it's not that I didn't WANT to trust you. I trust YOU, I trust Jordan Skylar Berenson. But like I said, I had no way to know that you were really, you know. YOU."
She huffed. "Oh sure, Rache. Like the Yeerks needed as many 11 year old girls as they could get, us being so powerful and all."
"We once met and freed a controller who was a six year old girl," I said calmly. She wasn't expecting that. "Do you know why they infested her? Because they wanted her dad. He was the CEO of Unicorp. That was when we knew, we knew we couldn't take ANYONE for granted. The Yeerks took Karen because it was easier to get a little girl than a rich and powerful man, but she was their way to him. Just like getting you or Sara would have gotten the Yeerks closer to getting at other influential people like oh, say, a prominent Lawyer with a Rolodex full of high end clients, or the weeknight anchor man in a major metropolis?" Jordan was looking down at the ground now. She knew I was right. "Look," I said as I put my hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look me in the eye. "You think I wanted to keep this from you?? I HATED it. I hated this stupid war and the stupid Yeerks for putting this wall up between me and my own f*cking family. Keeping me from everyone I knew besides the others."
Jordan sighed. "Ok. Ok, I get it. And even though I didn't know about the Yeerks or the morphing, you know I knew SOMETHING was going on right?I knew you snuck out of the house almost every night. I knew you somehow got a boy into your room all the time. I could hear you talking to him. I only heard him some of the time but I knew you weren't talking on the phone. You were whispering and your door was always locked."
I sighed. No I didn't know, not for sure. I knew Jordan wasn't really an idiot. "I guess I just…hoped you'd think I was, I don't know. Doing teen stuff? Sneaking out to smoke weed and cigarettes and make out with my secret boyfriend?"
Jordan rolled her eyes. "I mean, I did until…"
Well I didn't like that. "Until…what?" I asked, apprehensively.
"I…look I wasn't snooping, ok?! And I didn't say a word to mom, even though I SHOULD have but I…"
"Jordan! You what??"
"I…found your leotard one time. It was…it was all torn up, like slashed up by knives torn up. I…I wasn't LOOKING for it, I just wanted to borrow this one sweater that I knew you'd never let me wear so I was in your room going through your laundry and…"
I groaned. "Hork Bajir." I said. Jordan's eyes went wide and she couldn't stop them from darting over to Fal Tagut and Ket Halpak. I chuckled. "No, no. I mean I WAS a Hork Bajir. Morphing any clothes at all takes a lot of concentration, and even then we can only manage skin tight fabric. I can morph into Jara Hamee. Tobias can morph Ket. We were the first to do Hork Bajir morphs, but now we all have one. Anyway, there was a particular battle. It was…bad. I was in Jara morph and I got, I got messed up real bad. I was dying. I had to emergency demorph to human, because it heals us but…I was still kind of new to the Hork Bajir morph and the blades all over my body were the last thing to go. None of us but Cassie can really control HOW we morph."
She nodded and for the first time, I knew Jordan was finally understanding.
"So…", I started.
"Sooo?"
"So what did you think it meant? The leotard."
Her cheeks flushed and she looked back down at the ground. She mumbled something unintelligible.
"Jordan."
"Promise not to laugh."
"I promise no such thing."
"Fine. Then we're done here."
"JORDAN."
"UGH. Ok fine I thought…I thought you were the Slayer, alright?!"
I blinked. "The what?"
"The Slayer," she said, eyes planted firmly in the dirt. "You know, like..vampires?"
"You thought I was BUFFY?!" I squawked.
"I was ELEVEN, Rachel! What was I supposed to think?! I know tv shows are made up but like, some ideas have to come from somewhere, RIGHT? I mean, if I was keeping a big secret and didn't want it to get out, I'd make a TV show about it so no one would ever take it seriously!"
I was now laughing so hard I had doubled over. My hair was dangling down past my knees and I held one hand up in surrender.
"Rachel, you PROMISED!"
"I….*wheeze* I specifically…did… NOT." I choked out between laughs.
"Well what was I SUPPOSED to think?! You were always sneaking out or lying to mom and sneaking back in and you had a secret boyfriend who could get in and out of the house without ever using the front door, and you had your same group of friends that were always whispering and talking in made up words with and whenever anyone got close you'd all shut up or change subjects…" I mean, she did kind of have a point. "And you were always tired and tense and angry, and then I saw your leotard all clawed up…"
"Oh my god…ok, ok no, I get it. So wait…does that mean Tobias was my blonde vampire boyfriend?! Tobias is SPIKE??"
Jordan made a face. "Well it's not like you ever INTRODUCED us before now, but no…he seemed so, I don't know? Sad? Brooding? From the little bits and pieces I'd hear. I always thought he was more like Angel. I mean, unless you two were secretly off boning in a crypt somewhere…"
It was at that moment that my face betrayed me.
"Oh. My. GAWD. RACHEL!"
"Jordan." I hissed. "You want me to trust you, well I'm trusting you now. You. CANNOT. Tell. MOM."
"No DUH, Rachel. She'd lose her flipping mind." Her cheeks flushed and she looked away again. "Um…Rachel? What's it like to…"
"NOPE! NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE! NUH UH. No way. I m NOT doing this with you. Not today, Satan." She rolled her eyes at me but thankfully relented. "Look, Jordan I need your help, alright? This is serious business what's happening now. We're safe here for now, but who knows how long that will last. We're still in danger, we could be under attack at any point. I know this is hard. I know this sucks. It sucks real f*cking bad. But I need you to help me, with Sara. With mom. They don't understand any of this and I don't know what it'll take to make them, but I need you to try and get them not to fight me on everything as much as you can. Can you do that for me, Jor?"
The little demon smirked. "Yeah, I can do that. But what's in it for me?"
I rolled my eyes. "What do you want, gremlin?"
"I want to be an Animorph."
"No chance, dweeb. But I tell you what, I can tell you what Marco's favorite movies are…"
"DEAL!"
I found Jake about an hour later, away from everyone else. He had been doing this a lot, since we lost his parents to the Yeerks. He was sitting alone, under a tree. His eyes were dark and tired, I don't think he's slept since the night he told us to get some rest before we were supposed to get his parents out in the morning. But knowing Jake, he probably didn't sleep then either. He was staring off into space, but sighed when he saw me coming.
"What do you want, Rachel?" God. He sounded so…old.
"We need to talk."
He sighed again. "What, Rachel? You here to yell at me and tell me how to do my job?? You want to be in charge? You want to call the shots? Because you know what, cousin? It's yours if you god damn want it."
"Jake, you and I both know I'd get us all killed in a matter of minutes. That's not why I'm here. I'm …look I'm worried about you. About all of us. The Yeerks are looking for us, we could be under attack any day now. We need to DO something!"
"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT, RACHEL?! OF COURSE I KNOW THAT!"
"WELL THEN WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!"
"I. DON'T . KNOW!!!"
We were both breathing hard and heavy now. Stupid. I knew what I needed to say to Jake, but I let him bait me and get into another Berenson yelling match. "Jake…look. I'm sorry. I know the Yeerks have taken so much from you. This war has taken so much. It took your parents. It took your childhood. OUR childhood. It took our innocence. Before all that, it took your brother But this war has given us things too. It gave me a brother." He looked up at me, surprised. "Jake, look at us. We started this war as cousins. But now? We bicker, we fight. We piss each other off like no one else. We worry each other. I'm not your cousin, anymore Big Jake. I'm your god damn sister, and you've still got me." I reached my hand out to him and to my surprise, he took it.
I helped Jake up to his feet, and we did something we almost never do. We hugged. We haven't hugged since…since David killed our cousin Saddler. This felt the same. Everything was hopeless but we couldn't give up. We had to fight. We had to win. We were the Berensons. We were the Animorphs.
"Wargames." Jake said, in a tired, haggard voice.
"Huh?"
"I've been talking with Toby and Eva. We're thinking, we run drills. What it would be like if the valley comes under attack. We train everyone to fight, to survive. Eva knows exactly how the Yeerks would do it and she and Toby can instruct Toby's people on how to carry it out. It's the only way we can truly be ready."
I blinked. Maybe I had counted him out too soon. That was a GOOD idea. It hadn't even occurred to me. I said the only thing I could say in that moment. The only other thing Jake needed to hear from me. "Let's do it."
The sun was setting over the Hork Bajir Valley. The Parents were all crowded into Ax's scoop, watching the evening news with rapt attention. Marco and Sara were in the middle of a heated game of Pokemon cards. Ax was intently paying attention, no doubt trying to learn the game and getting hung up on some abstract human concept that everyone else took for granted. Jordan was intently paying attention to Marco. I considered going over there, but I think I've had my fill of Marco and Jordan for a day. And Ax, well… I know Marco said Ax was like him and me and Tobias. But to me, especially these days, Ax was more like Cassie. Ax was…weird around me. Like Cassie, I know I've been making him uncomfortable recently, which pissed me off because unlike Cassie who is a pacifist by nature, Ax has wanted nothing more his entire life than to be a great warrior like his brother. He was LITERALLY enrolled in the military as a cadet. But…that was alright. That was a conversation for someone else to have with Ax. I hope he was as successful as I was today.
I looked around for Cassie. I still didn't know how to talk to her or what to even say. We've been drifting apart recently and I hated it but I honestly didn't know how to fix it. I didn't know if it could be fixed. I found her, eventually and was relieved to see she was already occupied, sitting next to Jake on a bench that had been made out of the wood of a dead tree. I thought they were talking quietly at first but upon further inspection they were just sitting there in silence. I kept walking until I reached the edge of the camp, away from the others. I stopped and rested against a tree. The tree that a certain Red Tailed Hawk had taken to roosting in. I looked up but didn't see him. Then I heard soft, gentle footsteps from behind me. Familiar footsteps.
"Hey you." I said, smiling as I turned to face him.
"Hi Rachel." Tobias said, a slow, shy smile growing on his lips to match mine. Tobias' human face is like no one else's . His eyes are alert but glassy. Sad, even when they're happy. He has a soft, gentle sweetness to him that always relaxes me. When the fire is burning in my chest and the wasps are swarming and buzzing in my head, Tobias' eyes and smile calm me. He had dusty blonde hair that flirted on reddish, which I always thought was similar to the feathers in his tail. He reached out and laced his fingers in mine with one hand and placed the other on the small of my back.
I sighed into him, resting my head on his shoulder and teasing the hair on the back of his head with my other hand.
"How did it go?" he asked me, his voice was smokey and soft, not at all reminiscent of the predatory life he led to survive.
I sighed again, just enjoying the sensation of breathing in his neck, his human scent. I loved the way Tobias smelled. "It went…better than I expected, honestly. Marco's on the same page, like we expected. Jake is…bad, but I don't think we gave him enough credit. He's been planning with Toby and Mrs. Cabrera-Monroe to train everyone and run some wargame drills. What to do if…when the valley comes under attack." Tobias nodded, his eyes looking right into mine. "Jordan is…mad, but who can blame her? She said she'd do her best to keep my mom and Sara from fighting me on everything. Sara is…I honestly didn't have the heart to talk to her about all this. About how bad it's going to get. She was watching cartoons in the scoop and fussing over Pokemon cards and I didn't want to ruin that for her."
"They're so lucky, you know," Tobias said softly into my ear. "To have you for an older sister. To have someone who cares enough to fight for them. To kill for them…" he trailed off sadly.
I knew where this was coming from. "Tobias, you know somewhere, deep down, your mom loves you. I've only known her for a few days but already I can tell she's a fighter. She would have fought for you if she could have. And now…now she has you. And you WILL fight for her. And she's so, so, so lucky to have you." I pressed a little kiss into his neck and smiled at the tiny gasp it caused. "I'm so lucky to have you. I saw you, you know. This morning? With Ax. He was so proud of you. So was Loren. You're getting to be really dangerous with that tail blade."
He smirked at me, in that confident dancing on arrogant way that Ax does when talking about his Andalite culture. "Of course I saw you. They're nothing compared to my real eyes, but it's amazing to always see all around you at once. You looked incredible, by the way. You always do."
God. This boy. "And you…" I said as I brought my hand to gently roll down his cheek, "were absolutely beautiful, doing those exercises." I kissed him, then. Gentle and slow. After a precious, beautiful few moments he pulled away and grinned mockingly at me.
"Don't you mean that Ax looked beautiful?" he laughed. "You know that morph is just Ax. Should I be concerned?"
I chuckled but I wasn't about to let him ruin this "Tobias…these last few months, being together, I mean since we really started being together…I've been learning to take a page out of your book." He cocked his head at me in a very bird-like movement. I kept going. "I've been learning to see you, Tobias. No matter what morph you're in, what body you have. I see YOU. I'm just…I'm sorry it's taken me so long." We had a similar talk the other night, and even though I know he was just playing around, I needed him to hear it again. For every time I asked him to stay in human morph in the past, I would tell him again and again that no matter the body, I can see him now.
Tobias closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine. Then, to my surprise he gently placed both of his palms on my cheeks. He opened his eyes and looked into mine. Without thinking, I raised my hands and did the same thing. We stayed there, like that, not moving, just breathing and taking in the sensation of each other for a while. It must have looked so strange from the outside but it was intense in a way that I really cant explain.
"That was…wow. Tobias…was that…?" My voice came out shakier and breathier than I expected it to.
He nodded. "An Andalite kiss." Then, he added "From the rising of the sun, to the setting, to its rising again, we place what is hard to endure with what is sweet to remember and find peace."
I bit my lip. He's said it to me before, the Andalite evening ritual, but the slow, poetic way that he recited it to me, with his human voice and not thought speak, it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. We stood there, for a while after that. Not saying anything, trading light, soft kisses and smiling into each other's lips.
"I love you." He said simply, as if he were stating a fact that everyone knew and couldn't argue.
"I love you too," I said, forgetting about war, about killing and pain. But we've done this before and it never lasts. "Speaking of Andalites…" I said finally when the warmth of the silence started to cool.
"I talked to Ax," Tobias said gravely. It didn't sound good. "He's…he's worried about you Rachel."
"What business is it of his?!" I snapped, but Tobias just laughed. Most people found my anger frightening. Tobias found it cute.
He sighed "He went off on some talk about honor and the appropriate behavior of a warrior. He quoted his broth-, he quoted my dad again."
"Love the warrior, hate the war…" I recited half heatedly. Yeah, I've heard it before.
Tobias just looked at me. "You know it doesn't matter, right? Not to me. Ax and I are shorm, he's my best friend, my family…but he's not you, Rachel. And he knows that no matter what he thinks or says, it won't change how I feel about you. Look, we know how Andalites can be. They put themselves up on this high pedestal, but so much of their culture is a*sbackwards. You saw how they treat vecols, you've seen what they think about females in general. I think… I think you should be mad at him if you want. It's valid, but I don't think you should take it to heart. Ax has learned a lot since coming to Earth, and he's UNlearned a lot too. Give him time, Rache. He'll come around. You know he respects you, right? He said you're the fiercest, bravest warrior he's ever seen."
I closed my eyes. It was what I expected, but honestly it was as good of an outcome as I could have hoped for. It was Ax's Andalite beliefs that were making him uneasy around me, not some personal animosity. Deep down I knew that, before Tobias had confirmed it. But it was hard. Ax had so much to do with Tobias being happy these days, and ever since our talk the other night…
After we got back to the Hork Bajir Valley with Loren and once she was settled in, we snuck off. Much like we were now. We talked. Tobias was, for maybe the first time since the cruel trick that was "Aria", hopeful. We did something we never do. We talked about the future. We talked about our lives after we won the war, and specifically how we both wanted the other in it. We never said the "m" word, but we didn't have to. Tobias knew he was it for me. He was my love, my soulmate. I didn't need a ring to say that I would be with him for the rest of my life. He knew it was true. Of course…a wedding would be nice…
I felt a finger under my chin, gently tilting my head up, my gaze had drifted down to the ground while I got lost in thought.
Tobias, however was still thinking about how the other's thought of me made me feel. "You and I both know you're not some bloodlusted war monger, Rachel. I…I know we haven't really figured out a way to tell them yet, but WE know. And that's all that should matter."
It's true, I could admit that maybe I did love the thrill of combat. The excitement, the danger. But Tobias and I had discovered that fighting wasn't the only way for me to feel those things. We found something else, something just as dangerous and exciting and scary and thrilling. Something that was as beautiful as war was horrible and ugly. Something that I didn't have to be ashamed of loving. But just like war, it was something that adults would say we're too young for. Not ready for. I didn't care and Tobias was right. One day, after the war, we'd figure out a way to tell them. For them to see that yeah, maybe I was a bit of an addict, maybe I was reckless and a little insane, a little broken by war. But I wasn't a Howler. I didn't love to kill. I just loved.
"Did you know Jordan thought you were a vampire?"
Tobias snorted, caught completely off guard. "Say WHAT?"
"She thought you were a vampire. She knew you were always in my room, and that you never used the door. She never saw you but I guess she heard you some of the times you morphed human."
His cheeks flushed red now. "Oh no…"
"Yeah. I guess she knew I was always sneaking out and lying to our mom too. But she didn't say anything. She thought I was slaying Vampires like Buffy."
Now he was laughing, like I had been when she told me. "Oh my god, no!"
"YES! Remember the time we morphed Hork Bajir and I had to speed demorph out and the blades stayed on til the very end and tore my morph suit to shreds?? The little weasel was in my room trying to steal my clothes and she FOUND it!"
"Holy crap." Tobias chortled. "That's incredible. So…" his eyes darkened. "Do you want me to bite you?"
I rolled my eyes at him. "Calm down, Spike. First there's the little matter of you watching OUR shows with Ax and Marco."
Tobias laughed sheepishly. "What do you want from me? They tell a guy who's been living in a tree in the woods for years to pick something to watch. Our shows are all I know, besides like, the classics. And it doesn't matter, because those Philistines wouldn't appreciate Felicity anyway."
"You guys don't REALLY call yourselves the Scoop Boys, do you?"
"Oh…you uh…you weren't supposed to know about that…"
I smiled and looked Tobias in the eyes. I'd been crushing on him since he transferred to our school. Since I saw him eating lunch with my cousin and traded in a handful of favors to get Jake to "casually" trade school pictures with Tobias, like kids do. The second handful of favors I had to trade him was to make sure he never told Marco. This was all long before that fateful night in the construction site. It didn't take long after that for me to realize that Tobias felt the same way, but still, with things the way they were…him being a nothlit before the Ellimist gave him back his power and human morph… It took us a while, is what I'll say. I had hangups. He had hangups. Eventually we realized we were both being idiots and finally started dating for real about a year ago. I meant what I said to Jake. This war took so much from us. But it gave us some things too. Some amazing things. The other Animorphs think I love the war, but I don't. I do, however, love some of the things that have come into my life because of it. I try not to think about what my life will be like when the war is over. I know my friends worry about me and what I'll do. I'm not worried though. I know, that as long as we both make it out of this thing alive, Tobias and I will be happy. Happy and together.
I looked lovingly and my stupid, nerdy Scoop Boy. "You're lucky I love you."
"Yeah," he said grinning. "I am."