A/N: Okay, so I was not going to originally put any of what is in the next chapter into the story, although I wanted to, because I did not think that you wonderful readers (who hopefully review!) would like it, but you have been asking/begging/hinting at/for it, so here it is! Yeah, anyway, you'll realize what "it" is by the end of the chapter, I hope. Also, I would like to thank The Wandering Blue Andalite for encouraging me to do this. And thank you to Lady Lupin for helping me out with how to go about writing one part, and giving me a great quote.
Chapter 12
My muscles were aching, even though I had always thought of my gorilla morph as tireless. Rachel in her elephant morph and I had been moving the Kandrona for nearly an hour and a half, and we still had quite a ways to go.
I just hoped that by some miracle, some of the muscle burn would translate into my human body.
I realized I had said it out loud, however, when Rachel said, Aw, poor little Marco doesn't think that his human body is buff enough?
I glared at her, but started laughing when I watched her try to bat her elephant eyes at me to show that she was joking. Elephant eyelids just do not bat.
Hey, Bird-Boy, how much further do we have until we get to the Hork-Bajir camp? I called up to Tobias, hoping that he would have good news and say that it was not far.
Not that far, my friend, but at the rate you guys have been moving, it might take a while, Tobias replied.
Great, I complained. Why are Rachel and I doing all of the grunt work? All of you just get to walk alongside us while Xena and I work our butts off! Jake, can't you go rhino and help us out for a bit? Cassie, you have a chimp morph! Tobias? Ax! C'mon, help us!
"Sorry, buddy," Jake laughed, "but I'm just fine as is."
Some friend you are, I muttered under my breath.
Stop complaining, Marco, Rachel said. It's not that bad.
Easy for you to say! I joked. You weigh a few tons, all muscle. I'm only Marco, the super monkey!
Haha, she laughed.
"We can take a rest if you want," Jake said. "You two will need to demorph soon anyway."
Thanks, I responded.
I moved away from the Kandrona, and started the change. I felt the layers of muscle that made the gorilla so strong melt away, leaving me with weak again. My spine straightened, and my chin and brow ridge receden. My rubbery snout hardened and pushed out to become my human nose. My fur withered away, and I stood up, human once again. I looked at Rachel just in time to see her completing her morph, and her ropy tail suck back into her spine.
"Now that was a nice look," I commented.
She rolled her eyes at me.
"Is that the camp?:" Cassie asked Indi, pointing at what looked like a bunch of wooden platforms just barely visible past the trees."
"Yes."
"It can't take that long to get there then. Here, Jake and I can morph rhino and help you."
"Thanks so much for volunteering me," Jake said sarcastically, but then his stern face broke into a lopsided grin that he couldn't hide anymore.
"Wait," I said, "since when did you have a rhino morph?" I asked Cassie.
"Since we had to break up the meeting with all of the world leaders at the Hyatt, remember?" she reminded me.
"Oh. Yeah."
We stood and chatted a few minutes longer, and then we morphed again. We managed to move much more quickly with Cassie and Jake helping as well. Only half an hour later, the camp, our ship, the Hork-Bajir, and the Murkra and the human who could not morph became clearly visible. The Murkra were gathered in small groups, probably talking, and Menderash and General Doubleday were standing together, the sun glinting off of Menderash's bald head. He had lost his hair as payment for one of the Iskoort finding Guide for us. Sandra stood by herself, her face thoughtful. She smiled suddenly about something, her eyes looking dreamily into nothingness. They were all very absorbed in what they were doing, so they did not notice as we pushed the Kandrona right next to the ship, on the opposite side from them.
Jake, Cassie, Rachel, and I demorphed into or own human selves, and everybody who had been with us, including Tom, Jeanne, Santorelli, Yahal, Toby, Guide, Indi, Ax, Jake, Cassie, Rachel, Tobias, and I, walked around the ship.
"Hey, wuzzup?" I said.
General Doubleday looked at us and smiled warmly, and then waved.
Menderash nodded his head stiffly, smiled faintly. He was still getting used to human facial expressions.
Sandra's head snapped to side so she could look at us. Her face lit up with a huge grin. "Oh, my gosh! You're back! Are you okay? Where's Guide?" she exclaimed, running toward us.
I smiled back at her. Not only was she very pretty, but she was also smart, funny without meaning to be, appreciated my jokes, shorter than me, and energetic. I liked that.
She reached me and gave me a hug. I hugged her back, holding her close. She blushed, and I guess she felt self-conscious because she went around and hugged everybody else too.
"Guide's fine," I replied. "On the other side of the ship is a Kandrona that we found at the site of the old Yeerk Pool. Ax-man and Yahal here was able to get it booted up so Guide could eat. We brought the Kandrona with us because we figured that it'll be more than three days before we can get him home. Of course, it was mostly me that got it here, with my gorilla morph," I bragged, flexing the muscles in my human arm.
She smiled and shook her head, rolling her eyes. Okay, so she thought that it was funny, but she didn't believe me.
"Right, Marco, all you," Rachel said, sarcasm dripping off of every word. "And Jake, Cassie, and I didn't help at all in our rhino and elephant morphs." Trust her to ruin a perfectly good moment with me making Sandra laugh.
You know Rachel did most of it, Tobias said smugly from his perch on Rachel's shoulder.
I grinned. "Okay, so I had some help from Xena: Warrior Princess and our fearless leader and Earth Mother over there. But I could have done it myself."
"Whatever you say," Sandra said, laughing.
"Marco, you can stop hitting on Sandra now, we need to figure out how we're going to kick butt on the One," Rachel said, smirking. Sandra turned beet red.
"Okay. How are we going to do it?" I asked brightly, trying unsuccessfully to draw attention from the flush I knew was creeping across my own face.
Jake sighed, and got his "Jake look," which is the one he always gets whenever he thinks he has to make a decision that may end up in everybody dead. He opened his mouth to say something, but Cassie cut him off.
"We haven't learned anything new, have we? So, why do we need a new plan? The only thing new is more time to plan and the help of the Murkra."
Jake closed his mouth, blinked, and then said, "Okay, what Cassie says sounds about right. Let's just sleep on it for a night, and we can decide what we're going to do."
He nodded like he was finished, so everybody in the group broke apart and started to walk off.
I looked at Sandra walking away. "Sandra!" I called after her.
She turned around to look at me. I had no idea what I wanted to say to her, but I was stuck now.
I grinned, trying to hide my embarrassment. "I just wanted to say that, uh," I searched my brain wildly for something to say to her.
She smiled brightly. "Yes? What did you want to say?"
I took a deep breath. "I just wanted to say that I'm glad you, General Doubleday, Menderash, and the Murkra made it back alright."
"Oh." Her face fell.
I paused for a second. I had no reason to be nervous, because I could get any girl that I wanted back on Earth. I was famous, rich, funny, and incredibly cute. But still I felt butterflies all a flutter in my stomach.
"I also wanted to say that I might do a bit better tomorrow if I knew that I had a date to look forward to when I got back," I said with a grin and an exaggerated wink.
She was silent. "Are you asking me out?" she finally asked.
"Yeah, I guess I am," I answered, looking at her hopefully.
Her face broke into a wide smile. "In that case, I'd love to go out with you."
I smiled at her for a moment, and hesitated about what I wanted to do. Then I leaned in and kissed her.
A/N: Yeah, so, that was what "it" from the Author's Note at the beginning was! A Marco/Sandra fluff scene! Well, please tell me if you think she's becoming too Mary-Sue-ish, and I'll try to fix it in the future.