Voices echoed through my mind as Cassie finished reading the letter. She put it down and we stood there, in silence. So many things had happened over the past ten years. In our last battle, we had faced something; its name was "The One". The only reason why we are still living today is because the Ellimist. He had changed the course of time, returning us to earth with no one knowing we had left, no one but us, the Animorphs remembering what had happened. He sent them back so that Ax didn't go to the blade ship, he returned to earth where we had all held a meeting. The first one in years, it was held in my house in L.A.
After that, I started taking things more seriously; I stopped dating all of the supermodels that should still be in the second grade and helped Cassie and Ronnie with the Hork-Bajir, donating money whenever I could. But something that had always crept in the back of my mind, a fog that seemed to never rise, it started to diminish, let things through. And as they fell through I changed, I changed yet remained the same.
Every night I would dream, I would dream of a field with a vast collection of flowers, I would run through the field as a wolf then demorph to find a woman who's face was not revealed, standing there, her back facing me. I would call out to her, ask for her name but she would never reply. At the end of the dream she would turn to look at me but before her eyes would reach me I would wake up and find myself panting, from running so far in the dream.
Cassie looked at me, and then looked at the ground. I knew that something was troubling her, so did Jake. We all stood there in awkward silence until I hear a car start up and I turned to look, it was she. The girl that had dropped the letter, the yellow rose, the girl that was funny, smart, and claimed to be erased from our lives. She drove away.
"Sir, your friend Tobias is at the door." Wetherbee said as he let Tobias in. I was in my room playing virtual reality video games; it was amazing what they could come up with in ten years after adding alien technology to ours. I took it off and saw Tobias.
"Yo." I said, still taking off the padding. Tobias squinted as he looked at me; I hadn't seen him in human morph since Rachel died… "What's up?" I tossed him a Pepsi and sat down on the couch. He grabbed it and sat down in the chair across from me.
"It makes sense." He said, half to himself, half to me. "The girl, she seemed so familiar! At first I thought I was crazy, that I was making it up in my head but no, it's much different. I remember now, Cassie helped me." He said looking at me. "Rachel died, I lost her," he said with tears in his human eyes. "But you lost something that you never even knew you had…" He looked at me, Tobias had changed a lot over the past 13 years, and he had gone from a bully magnet, to a hawk. Then he had left civilization, remained in contact with only Cassie and lived life as a hawk that had happened after he lost Rachel, after he lost everything worth living for. "Your still clueless." He seemed suddenly depressed as the words fell out of his mouth. He started to walk out the door, but turned around and threw me a book before he left.
"Ow!" I said loudly as I opened the book. I started reading it but then turned to the back page where there was a small autobiography of the author:
"Danielle Austin, born August 9, 1983 in New York. When she was thirteen she moved to a small town outside of L.A. and lived there until about a year before the great yeerk and Animorph war became open. Many investigators had looked into why she had moved; she had begged her mother to move just weeks before the Animorphs bombed the yeerk pool. She would make no comment on her reasons of moving but says that she expresses everything that she feels in her writing." I stopped reading and started flipping to the front. The title was "A Crystal Rose," I turned to the dedication page and my heart stopped. "This book is dedicated to the only one I know that can answer this question with scientific facts, who's better bat man…or superman?"
* * * FLASH * * *
I was at the school dance. People were dancing around me, someone had asked Ax to dance so I was standing alone. "Care to dance?" A voice said from behind me, I turned around and saw her. The girl that was at Rachel's memorial, the girl that I had known but forgotten…I stood there looking at her. She was beautiful, in body and spirit. "What, do I have something in my teeth?" She asked smiling.
"No." I smiled as the memories flowed back into me with a pleasurable ease. "Now about that dance?"
* * * FLASH * * *
When I woke up, I knew what I had to do. I ran outside with my car keys, not caring which one I drove. And I drove back, back to the place that none of us could go since the battle on the pool ship. I drove to Erek's. I ran up to the front door and rang the doorbell incessantly. The door opened and standing there was Erek.
"Marco?" He asked, his holographic face had aged; he looked about 26 years old now, not like a 7 million year old android from across the galaxy. Just your average 20-year-old, "come in.," he said after a minute of silence.
I walked into the house and sat down. He sat down across from me, his holographic face pale with guilt. "I need a favor." I said hastily as Erek looked at me. "I need you to find someone for me, her name is Danielle Austin." The holographic face froze.
"Why do you wish to find her?" He said with a grin.
"I wish to remember." Erek quickly ran into the kitchen and got a piece of paper out and handed it to me.
"Please…tell Jake I'm sorry and that it'd be nice if we could talk…and tobias…"
"Tobias would kill you if he knew where you were." I left it at that as I ran out the door, heading towards my car. I stopped suddenly looking at the sky. "Looks like there would be beautiful thermals…"
I was in the air…it felt so good to be flying again; it had been so long since I had morphed. Yeah I did the occasional commercial and special movie effects by morphing but I had never morphed just for the pleasure of the gift before. I flew over Los Angeles; I flew over my house and saw Wetherbee throwing a party. Nice Party. I said to him with a laugh as I flew towards her, towards Danielle.
I reached the address and landed on a branch outside of a second story window. There she was, inside doing her hair. My memories came flowing back to the front of my mind as I watched her comb her hair. I realized she was looking at a picture on her dresser. I focused my razor sharp hawk eyes on it and saw a picture of 7 seemingly normal teenagers leaning against a wooden fence, there were trees behind them and you could tell it was summer by what they were wearing. Starting on the left was a boy that seemed oddly attractive and yet familiar, next to him was another boy who looked around 17-years-old, his dirty blonde hair had a sort of "flip" hairstyle as we had called them, next to him was a teenage girl that looked like a model. Her golden blonde hair was up in a ponytail and her arm was around the boy with the blonde hair and his arm was around her. After that was a teenager with brown hair in a sort of military cut, he had a smile on his face but his eyes made him look so much older than he must have been, to his right was an African American girl with her hair very short and she wore overalls with poop stains all over them and a ripped shirt. There were rings on both of their fingers… Finally there was a boy with black hair and a smirk on his face, I knew him well, I knew him as well as I knew myself, well of course I would know myself as well as myself…does that make sense? Next to me was a girl, was Danielle, she was smiling but looked sad as though she knew it would end…
I flew into the backyard then demorphed, I ran into the front and rang the doorbell. "Hello?" a little voice said as the door opened. I looked at the face in disbelief…I couldn't place it but I knew the girl. My heart froze when I saw her. I started walking away when I heard Danielle. "Hope, what are you doing I told you never to open the door for strangers…" she said as she looked at me. I stopped, looked at her then continued walking away.
"Wait!" She said as she ran after me, tears were in her eyes.
"I think I better go." I said.
"No, you wanted to see me?"
"Is that your daughter?" I asked. My heart sunk to the bottom of my lung cavity as I said those words.
"No, I'm watching her for a friend." Hope finally started to settle in again as I looked at her with a smile. I tried to think of what to say, some witty comment or joke.
"I'm here looking for someone." I finally said, giving up on finding something funny to say. She looked at me with such hope in her eyes. "I made a promise to them, and I would like to keep it, do you know if their here?" Tears rolled down my cheeks and I noticed the same thing happened with her as she wiped her eyes.
"Their here, I've been here, I'll always be here." Then we hugged and I couldn't believe what had happened, it was though my whole life flashed before my eyes, I was finally complete, finally all there.
We stood there as it started raining; we stood there and looked into each other's eyes for what seemed like an eternity. I knew that there would be more battles that there was a good chance we would lose each other again. But at that moment it didn't matter. The one was looking for us, looking for the people that had mysteriously escaped him when the Ellimist had broken his game and saved us. He couldn't shield us forever and strangely I think that she knew that, that she knew everything that had happened and was ready to accept it. So we stood there, staring into each other's eyes for eternity.
