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Tobias

I didn't know what to feel. Should I feel relief that Rachel's still alive, pity for those she killed, or anger at Jake for sending her on a mission that could have ended her life permanently. I honestly didn't know. All I knew was that Rachel was still alive and I also knew that Jake was beating himself up for ever letting her go on that mission even if he didn't show it. In a way I guess I knew that she was the perfect one for the job. Out of all of us she was the only one who really enjoyed going out there and fighting the Yeerks. Yet, when she looked up to the viewscreen after finishing the fight, I saw something there that I had never seen before and had never expected to see. It was utter disgust, not at the scene around her, at herself. Rachel had alway been self-confident, she had had a respect for herself. But as I looked into her eyes it seemed to me that the respect and confidence she had once had was gone. No more. Her eyes seemed dead to me at the moment. Then she had passed out. Jake had sent Ax to go get her and the Blade ship. He had left in one of the Bug fighters.

For a while no one spoke. No one dared. The silence was only broken when I heard Ax's hooves come clopping in daintily. I looked up and saw Ax walking toward us with a very tired-looking Rachel walking beside him and Toby Hamee, the Hork-Bajir seer, coming in behind them both. Rachel walked straight towards me. As soon as she reached me she collapsed. I caught her before she hit the floor and pulled her back up. She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder. I simply held her for a moment when I suddenly felt something wet on my shoulder. It took me a moment to realize she was crying. The thought of her even capable of crying seemed strange to me, since she had always been so strong. I didn't do anything but simply let her cry, holding her and offering what little comfort I could give. Her crying grew from silent tears to a loud sobbing and almost everyone around me seemed as disturbed to see Rachel crying as I was.

Almost everyone...

Jake didn't seem disturbed or surprised. I noticed a slight glint in his eyes and I was shocked to realize that they were unshed tears. It took me a moment but I realized that it shouldn't surprise me at all. Jake was the one that had suffered the most losses during this war and he had had to be the strongest of us all. All at once it hit me just how much pressure had been put on Jake. He was the one who had had to make all the calls, the one who had to decide and carry the weight of that decision, be it good or bad. He had been the one to sentence so many Yeerks, humans, Hork-Bajir, and Taxxons alike to death and then live with the knowledge that he had been the one to make that decision. Sure, it had weighed down on all of us, but Jake had made the decision, not just carried it out.

I knew at that moment Jake was reliving all of the decisions he had made, starting at the beginning, all the way to flushing the Yeerks from the Pool ship and sending Rachel out to kill Tom. He was reliving all the deaths he had caused, directly or indirectly. Suddenly it didn't seem fair to me that it had been Jake who had been the one to carry all the weight during this war. How long had it been? Months? A year? More? He deserved to cry, I guess. But he couldn't, hadn't been able to. He had had to stay strong for us, to keep us going. He was there to make us believe that there was still hope when he hadn't had any himself. It was killing him, I knew. If he stayed like that without letting it all out, it would kill him. We had all had our final few years of carefree life stolen from us, but no one had aged more than Jake. All the decisions piled on top of deaths piled on worries and strategies and plans and so on had aged him far more than he should've. And it wasn't fair.

Cassie. She still had most of her life intact. Her parents were still alive and free. She was unhurt...physically at least. Cassie had never liked the killing, the fighting. She had always loathed it. And it had taken it's toll on her. She wasn't the same. I hadn't really known her that well back in the beginning, but I still knew she wasn't the same. Back then, she had seemed more carefree, worrying only about school, helping her father at the clinic, and of course Jake. Now, she was more cautious, wary, less trusting. We all were. She would never forget it, never could. I caught Cassie's eye and tilted my head toward Jake. She nodded slightly and went over to him to comfort him. I noticed him relax slightly at Cassie's presence.

Marco is the one I think has changed in the most subtle ways. His life didn't change all that much. Besides having the worry of the Yeerks that is. The biggest change was finding out that his mother was still alive, which if you ask me is a very big thing. He became more sarcastic and pulled off more jokes than before, according to Jake. But of course that was because making jokes and being sarcastic is Marco's way of dealing with fear and worries. I guess his outlook on life changed a lot too, just like the rest of us.

Ax. I can't really say much about him because I never knew him before he came to Earth, but being his best friend, his shorm, I do know that he changed as well. Not just from the war, but also by being islolated from his people and living with us humans. You could say he developed a strange, twisted sense of humor, probably from hanging with Marco. He learned about human culture, the good and the bad. He also learned about food...and taste... The war, I think, left him with different thoughts about honor, how there is no clear good or bad. We had all learned about those shades of gray.

Rachel... She had changed so much as well. I hadn't exactly known her back when it all began, but I had already liked her, and I had noticed her from afar. She had been different. Carefree, different priorities. She used to think that shopping was big priority in her life. That changed. Her attitude too. She became ruthless, she, of all of us, enjoyed the war. Enjoyed going out to hunt down Yeerks on our missions. She had always been the one to say 'Let's do it.' She had known that she was changing too. She had felt it. Behind her facade of the self-confident, strong person, I had seen that the changes had troubled her.

As I held her in my arms though, it seemed as if she had finally snapped, her spirit had been broken. Instead of triumph, as she would have felt on a normal mission, she felt defeat. She no longer found enjoyment in battle, she loathed it more than Cassie did. Just like Jake. I wondered how I never noticed before, but they were so alike, now more than ever. I had often seen Rachel's crazy smile, the one she put on before going on a mission, on Jake's face, even if I had never noticed it was the same as hers before. They were both strong, too strong. I also knew that if Rachel had died today, Jake would isolate himself, become withdrawn, kill himself slowly by keeping that weight inside. Rachel had changed too much too fast and then suddenly had been yanked the other way all to quickly. It had been to much for her. Rachel was one of the strongest people I know. But even she couldn't handle that. I felt her sobbing subside a bit, and then a bit more as she ran out of tears to cry. After a moment she fell asleep leaning against me.

Had I changed? Yes. In more than just the obvious way. Yes, I had gotten trapped in morph as a red-tailed hawk. Yes, I killed my food each day. Yes, I couldn't go around with my friends for very long if I wanted to keep my morphing ability to help them. And of course, the worry of the Yeerks. But in my case, I think that the good outweighs the bad. I got away from the people who never cared about me, my aunt and uncle, and found people who would risk their lives to save me and occasionally had. I found my mother, I met my father, if only briefly, and gained the best friends anyone could ever have. We had been through everything together. For me, my life is better than it was before, no matter the danger. Not only that, but my crush for Rachel had grown into something more over the time that we had gotten to know each other. It had grown into love. Many people say that young people don't know what love is, that they get disillusioned, that they mistake a simple attratction or crush for love. But I knew that loved Rachel. I knew that she loved me back, even if she never said it. And she knew that I loved her as well, even if I hadn't said it either. We didn't need to. We knew. And I know, that if she had died today, I would have isolated myself, just like Jake. I would've been lost. She was the one thing I couldn't live without. I would have let the hawk instincts take over once again, but this time for good. I would slowly have let my mind die. I shifted Rachel's weight so I could pick her up and carry her. She was so tired that she didn't even stir.

The rest of what happened is a blur. I vaguely remember Jake telling Cassie to warn Erek the Chee to get off the ship if he wanted his secret kept, then going out to deal with the Yeerks that surrendered with Toby.

I remember learning that Jara Hamee had died in battle.

I remember freeing Alloran-Semitur-Corrass from Visser One's hold.

I remember an angry Andalite War-Prince arguing with Jake about the remaining Yeerks.

I remember him boarding the Pool ship to argue some more and Jake winning and Ax being promoted to rank of Prince.

I remember demorphing at some point and then remorphing back to human.

I remember dealing with the remainder of Yeerks. Freeing the host bodies and giving the Yeerks morphing technology and animals to morph, letting them become nothlits. Giving morphing tecnology to the Taxxons and letting them morph anacondas to be relocated to the Amazon later while the newly freed Hork-Bajir joined the colony.

I remember landing and leaving the Yeerk Pool ship, Rachel still being carried in my arms.

I remember being mobbed by reporters, whom we walked by, although Marco wanted to stop and talk, but decided now was not the time.

I remember going back to camp for the last time, even though we could have gone home.

But most of all, I remember sitting next to Rachel in my human morph when she had awoken watching the stars and talking quietly about all that had happened. We talked mostly of trivial things, things of no importance. We fell silent for awhile before I asked a question I wanted to know the answer to.

"What made you change?"

The question seemed vague even to me, but Rachel knew what I meant.

"Laying there on the Blade ship, with the Yeerks I'd killed laying around me motionless, I suddenly remembered every single fight I'd fought in. I remembered every single Yeerk I'd killed. Only then did I realize exactly what this war was. A war, a hard, long, terrible war. And when I realized that I had played a major part in the destruction of millions of individual sentient beings did I realize exactly what a war is about," she said softly. "Killing," she said bitterly. "Killing is what wars are all about, no matter how good the cause."

After she answered my question we both felt silent once more. After a moment I could feel her looking at me, watching me, so I turned my head to look at her.

Our eyes met.

Even in the darkness I could make out the depth in her blue eyes. We didn't need to say anything. We already knew. But I said it anyway. "I love you," I told her softly.

"I love you too," she replied.

"I know," I repiled back. I leaned closer to her and kissed her softly on the lips. I felt her wrap her arms around my neck as I put my arms around her waist and deepened the kiss. When we broke apart she leaned her head against my chest and I rested my head atop hers, our arms still around each other. We simply sat there and watched the stars, content simply knowing we had each other.