TITLE: I Am Jake

AUTHOR: Doctor Strangelove (strangelove317@yahoo.com)
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: No particular spoilers for the series. Visser Three is still Visser Three. Spoiler for the fic "Adventures In Clubbing".
DISCLAIMER: Animorphs aren't mine. Osiris is.

"I Am Jake"
Written by: Doctor Strangelove

Osiris opened the door and stepped through it. Into the hallway of my house.

I don't know why, but I guess with all the stuff he was saying I was kind of expecting something a little more dramatic. There wasn't.

He looked at me expectantly and I followed him out of my bedroom. He started walking down the stairs and I again followed. "So, um, when exactly does this whole... well what exactly is this? This thing we'll be doing?"

Osiris stopped walking outside of my front door. "It's like a vision quest sort of thing."

"Oh. Cool. And when does it start?"

He smiled at me. "It already has, my dear boy. We're already questing, we just have to get to the visions."

"And how will we be getting to these visions."

"Walking." Osiris said, as if it should be obvious. With that he opened my front door and left.

I groaned and quickly followed. I was still feeling pretty rotten and would've loved to stop for a few minutes. "Walking to where?"

"You'll see." He said without slowing down.

And walk we did. We had covered at least three miles without saying a word. I made an attempt at breaking the silence. "So, isn't Osiris like a Greek god, or something?"

Osiris stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face me with a very pissed off look. "Egyptian." He answered curtly. "And I was here first."

I didn't make any more attempts at conversation.

*****

Interesting note. People look really bizarre frozen. They're in all sorts of odd poses and have the most bizarre expression on their faces mid-conversation. It's really quite entertaining.

I was so engrossed with the frozen people, I didn't notice Osiris had stopped walking and I walked right into him. "We're here," he said as he helped me onto my feet.

I looked at exactly where "here" was. "This is Marco's house."

"That it is." Osiris walked right up to the front door and opened it.

"Hey! You can't just do that. That's breaking and entering." I shouted after him.

He nodded. "Yes, it is." He stood there holding the door open for me, so I sighed and walked on in. I followed Osiris up to Marco's room.

He wandered around the room, lightly fingering Marco's belongings, while I stood in the doorway. "Why are we here?" I asked, getting a little upset that this guy I had never seen before was going through my best friend's belongings.

"This quest is all about you, Jake." Osiris said without looking at me.

"So why are we in Marco's room?"

Osiris smiled and sat on the bed. "You don't get it do you? Humans, Andalites, all sentient beings. We are not a vacuum. We do not exist in and of ourselves. We are complex. We do not make up ourselves. We are made up of those who surround us. The people in our lives, the ones who matter. That's who we are.

"To understand you, you have to understand those that you love."

I stared at Osiris, a little flabbergasted by all the things he said. "I'm not... I don't love Marco."

Osiris sighed and tapped me on the head. "I'm not talking romantic love here, Jake. You love Marco in a platonic way." Then he muttered something under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing."

I nodded, somewhat grasping what Osiris was talking about. "Okay, so when do the visions come into play. I mean, this is a vision quest. So far it's been a lot quest and very little vision."

Osiris just smiled again. He was doing that a lot, and it was kinda creepy. Like he knew more than he was letting on, which I'm pretty sure he did. He picked up a picture frame off of Marco's dresser and threw it at me.

I instinctively caught it and looked down. It was a picture of me and Marco as little kids. I smiled, "Hey, I remember this. This was at Marco's tenth birthday party. We were both really excited because he had just gotten-"

"Welcome to Mario Kart!" I looked up. I was no longer in Marco's bedroom. I wasn't even in his house. Well, not this house.

I was back at Marco's eleventh birthday party. The party had ended and the other kids had left. I was still there, because Marco and I were having a sleepover. There we were. Little eleven year old me and Marco playing Mario Kart 64.

I sat down on the couch and just let it all sink in. Before the war. Before the morphing. Before Tom was a Yeerk. Before all of that stuff. It was just me and Marco, Mario and Luigi racing down Rainbow Road.

"God, that was so much fun." I turned to Osiris who was sitting next to me on the couch. "We stayed up all night playing it. Then at like 4 AM we were so tired we could barely keep our eyes open. And then we unlocked the reverse mode. We were up till dawn. I remember Marco's dad said he found us laying there, passed out on the floor, in the middle of a race."

But then I stopped and thought, "But what does this have to do with anything?"

Then she walked in.

"Hey, I brought you boys some soda."

Marco looked up from the screen just long enough to say, "Thanks, Mom."

"I completely forgot." I whispered, so taken aback to see Marco's mom alive again. Well, she was still alive, but here she was still Marco's mom. Not Visser One. Well, if she was, we didn't know it at the time and she sure as hell wasn't acting like it.

His mom sat down on the couch right next to me, less than an inch separated us. I turned to Osiris, who was seated on the other side of me. "Can she...?"

He shook his head. "They can't hear us or touch us. This is only a vision of what once was."

I stared at her as she watched the two of us, the younger me and Marco. She was smiling so wide, so happy. I felt sick as I wonder it was really her or just a Yeerk wearing her face.

"I remember, back then, I used to have a crush on Marco's mom." I told Osiris, and for the life of me I don't know why I said it. "But then... this was only two months before-"

"Marco, I have some news." I looked around again. I was still in Marco's living room, but it was different. He was there playing Mario Kart by himself. I was gone, the party was over. Then it hit me.

"Oh, God."

Marco's dad sat down next to him and turned off the TV. "I have some news."

"What is it, Dad?" Marco was so little. So naive. He had a wide-eyed look on his face. I couldn't watch this, but when I tried to I couldn't turn away.

"It's about your mom, son." His dad was trying to choke back tears.

Then Marco started to get worried. "What happened?"

"She went out this morning. Boating. There was... there was some kind of accident."

"But she's all right now, right? I mean, she's okay?" His voice was full of pleading.

"No, she's not. They can't... they didn't find a body. They're still looking, but they don't think they'll find anything. They're pretty sure she's..." Marco's dad broke down crying.

He fell to his knees and Marco instantly put his arms around his dad. He was crying too. I could only watch as Marco tried to comfort his own father without falling apart himself.

"I forgot how little he was when it happened." I said, talking only to myself.

Then we were at the funeral. Her funeral.

Marco and his dad sat in the front row as the preacher prattled on. It then occurred to me that he'd never met the woman. He had no idea what he was talking about. He'd probably said the thing about a hundred other women. What did he know?

Marco's dad was crying. Marco wasn't. He just sat there and again I thought about how small he was. How little, and how much responsibility he had taken at such a young age. It had all never occurred to me before.

I was there too, crying my little eyes out. And Erek King was there, something I never knew. I guess she had been Visser One at that point. Why else would the Chee be there?

And then the briefest flashes. Marco growing up, doing everything around the house as his dad became more distant. Marco seeing his mother as Visser One for the first time. And then something with Marco and Ax.

And then I was outside. It was night and I was getting soaking wet from the rainfall. Then I wasn't. I looked up and saw Osiris standing above me with an umbrella.

"Why did you show me that?" I asked, furious about the things I had seen. He had no right to pry into Marco's life like that. I didn't realized until now that I was crying.

Osiris didn't answer me. Instead he handed me the umbrella and started walking through the rain. I finally noticed a building about a hundred yards out. I followed him, angrily. "Answer me, damnit!"

"I will, Jake. But not now. We're not done yet. You still have one more thing left to see.

So we walked through the rain and I noticed Osiris never got wet from the downpour. We walked around to the backside of the building and Osiris opened a small backdoor for me. We walked through hallways filled with doors and machinery. It was all very cold and business-like. That's why I was so surprised by the next room.

It was a huge open area. Like a club. Then it hit me, we were at the Sharing's club. Those backrooms must be where the Yeerks were working.

"What's going on here?" I tried to look around but the room was very dark, except for the dance floor.

"This is a dream." Osiris non-answered me.

"I'm asleep?"

"Not your dream." He explained.

"Oh. But why are we..." Then I saw why. Out in the middle of the dance floor was Marco. He was dancing with somebody. "So this is Marco's dream? You're showing me more about him?" Osiris didn't answer. "Who's he dancing with?"

Osiris didn't say anything. He didn't need to. Marco turned around and I saw who he was dancing with.

Tom.

Marco was dancing with my brother. They were very close and had their arms around each other.

"Oh."

To reviewers: Jinako-chan: Yes, it will be J/C. In fact Cassie gets a whole chapter about her and her relationship with Jake. I'm very glad to be back. And I hope you like this story as much as "Adventures in Clubbing" although it has much less slash. Although it's not entirely without as you can see. Oh, and hurry up and finish Chronicle One of "Threads of Fate".

Wake: Sorry about being gone so long and your research paper. But I'm so glad you like the story.

DH L'Orange: I'll try to do the humor, but this fic will have a more serious tone. Sorry. It's not all angsty though, so there's still place for some funny.

Aqua Rhapsody: Again, so sorry to keep everyone waiting.