Heylo! I just wanted to thank everyone who reviewed my story, I read them all and looked at advice and everything, and I wanted to say thank you. So thanks. ;-)

***BTW,I reread Chapter 4 , and now I realize I was on something when I wrote that really screwed up chapter. We all know Ax wasn't invested by a Yeerk who liked to call himself The One, but was absorbed by a creature called The One. So to whoever found that confusing, I don't blame you. I find it confusing, and I wrote the stupid thing! Anyway, I thought I should clear that up. ***

On with the story.

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CHAPTER 12: Tobias

So, Marco, how'd you get out of that mess?

It was April 12th. 1912. Day three of our lovely little Love Boat cruise. Jake, Rachel, Marco, Cassie, Ax and I were all roaches. Not one of our favorite morphs, but definitely one of our most useful. We were on the door of the receiving wireless room, spying on the Wireless Operators , trying to figure out where the CALIFORNIAN was. See, very few people know that the wireless needed two rooms on board the TITANIC: one for transmitting and one for receiving. The reasoning behind that was so the static or buzzing sounds from the transmitter wouldn't interfere with the receiver. Weird. But anyway.It was kind of late, so while we were waiting for the call, we were making conversation.

Originally, it was only supposed to be Jake, Cassie and I who were to go spy on these guys. But Cassie and I wouldn't go without Rachel, Jake wouldn't go without Marco, and Ax wasn't trusted by his self anymore after we heard a rumor that a maid on the TITANIC was sick. The rumor said she thought she saw a monster in Ax's suite. So he came with us.

And while we were waiting for the call to come in, we were making conversation. Usually, when we need conversation, Marco is the one to come and through in a couple of corny jokes. But this time, Marco wasn't joking around. Or at least he wasn't.

The rest of us actually thought it was pretty funny.

Apparently Marco lied to this girl named Kristen about being American, which was only slightly stupid. I mean, come on, I know Marco gets into this drama act that he'll put on sometimes, but this was ridiculous.

She found out he lied and confronted him about it. And we asked him what happened.

You want to know how I got out of it? Easy. I suddenly had an uncontrollable urge to go to the bathroom. I left her at the breakfast room table. And that was that. I haven't seen her since.

Has she stopped by your room? Cassie wanted to know.

Nope. And I didn't go by hers, either.

Marco, even for you, that's cold and heartless, Rachel wanted him to know.

What? Not stopping by her room? Marco asked innocently.

If Rachel had eyes at the moment, she would've rolled them. No, you moron. Leaving her at the table without telling her why you lied. Every person has a right to know the truth. If you get lied to and find out you were lied to, it hurts. But if you just say 'I'm sorry' or 'please forgive me I'll tell you the truth' that will take away most of the pain.

Well, at least someone gives me a piece of advice that I can use. Oh! It's too late! he said, making a special emphasis on the words 'too late'.

Chill, Marco. You too, Rachel. Although, Marco, you would've done better telling her you were a Frenchman I said. I was pleased with myself when everyone but Marco and Ax laughed at that.

Or Irish Cassie said.

I am completely confused by the point of this conversation, Ax interjected.

Or Dutch Jake said. But by then everyone had pretty much stopped laughing.

I said, Or Dut- oh never mind. No one laughs at my jokes anyway. Hey, those guys are saying something

I listened.

I heard some men talking, a clicking noise, and then quiet again. They headed for the door.

Everybody, scatter! Jake said.

We quickly took off in different directions. All of us ran off the door. What a stupid hiding place, I thought to myself. Just sitting there on the door like that. It's a miracle that they didn't see us and try to swat us. They left.

And then it clicked.

Oh man!

Tobias? What? Rachel asked.

They-They turned it off.

They turned it off? Isn't it illegal or something to turn off-

It's not illegal to turn off the wireless right now. They changed the law after the TITANIC sank.

No one said anything for a minute.

Tobias. Are you telling me that these guys didn't get the CALIFORNIAN's coordinates? Or did we just miss it talking about Marco?

At least we missed it talking about something important, Marco muttered.

No, we didn't miss it. I made a mistake. It's tomorrow they get the ice warning from the CALIFORNIAN, not today. I think, anyway.

Silence.

Oops? I offered.

Oops? Big time oops, Tobias. Marco said, getting angry. I morphed a roach to listen in on an ice warning, because our resident TITANIC genus birdboy knows his stuff, and guess what? He's wrong!

Hey, he made a mistake! Marco, you've made mistakes. What about suddenly being English without the accent to prove it-

Rachel was defending me. That made me feel worse than I already felt.

I was about to speak my piece when Jake interrupted.

Marco. Rachel. Chill. Marco, it's not that big of a deal, so shut up. Rachel, you'll make it worse than it is. Tobias. Are you sure the ice warning is going to come in tomorrow? We really need those coordinates.

Yeah. I'm sure. I replied miserably.

Alright then. Let's go human. All of us, Ax and Tobias.

We ducked into a random room and demorphed, and two of us remorphed. Afterwards, we headed to Rachel's room.

"Alright, listen." Jake told everyone. "We made a mistake tonight. But it doesn't change the fact that the CALIFORNIAN coordinates are coming in tomorrow night. So we meet up same time we met up today. Same place. We morph roaches. And we listen in. Got it?"

"Yes, sir!" Marco saluted.

"Ah, just another day in the life of an Animorph," Rachel said gleefully.

Ax looked disturbed. "Prince Jake, I understand these coordinates are important to the mission we now face for some unknown reason that I will not even attempt to ask for. But I must ask this question: Are we certain these coordinates to this ship will even be known? Cer-tahan? Cert-ain?"

"Tobias said he was sure the TITANIC got an ice warning from the CALIFORNIAN, and this warning contained the coordinates." Cassie said.

"Yeah, Ax. There's nothing to worry about. We get the coordinates tomorrow, we morph to birds and fly to where ever the ship is, we land, we demorph somehow, we survive. No prob." Rachel piped up.

"Are you positive it is this simple? Do any of you know how to read the coordinates?" Ax wanted to know.

Not even Marco had thought of this. Cassie looked at everyone. "Hey, I can't read them. But I'm sure," she paused as she looked around, " I'm sure that one of you guys do, right?"

No one said anything.

"Right?" she pressed.

Again, no response.

"Well, this is going well," Jake muttered.

"I'll spend the day with one of the TITANIC wireless operators, and maybe learn how to-"

"Rachel!" Marco hissed. "Bad idea!"

"Why?" she wanted to know.

"Because, you could change history! Just being on this ship changed history in a slight way!" Marco said.

"Ugh. Time travel. Way too complicated. Can I demorph now?" I asked.

"No one's stopping you," Jake said.

So I demorphed. But as I demorphed, I thought.

Changing history. Was is always a bad thing? After all, we were changing history by being on the TITANIC, and by doing this we were all alive again, if only for a short time. A short time which we hoped to make permanent, by exterminating the first Yeerk.

And by killing the very first Yeerk, or first couple of Yeerks, the whole race of Yeerks wouldn't know about Earth. Which would save millions of lives. It would let us enjoy our youth, the youth we had lost by becoming the Animorphs. Rachel wouldn't have to kill Tom. Jake wouldn't have a controller brother. Marco wouldn't have a controller mother. Cassie wouldn't have to compromise her morals all the time. Ax wouldn't have lost his brother. I wouldn't have lost my father. My real father.

It would save all the nameless human controllers we had killed, not to mention the years of slavery and torture in their own mind they had endured.

And yet.something tore at me. Something was nagging at me. What? What was it?

And then, I thought of it. It was so simple, all of us had missed it. Duh.

By killing off the first Yeerk, Jake, Rachel, Marco, Cassie, and I wouldn't have met Elfangor at all. We wouldn't have been the Animorphs. No Yeerks, no Animorphs.

And would it really have been for the better?

Jake wouldn't have a controller brother, but he also wouldn't be the leader he was meant to be.

Rachel wouldn't be killed, but she would not have found her own meaning of life, the fighting, the war.

Marco wouldn't have lost his mother, but he wouldn't have grown closer with her, either. He wouldn't have appreciated his family like he does now. I guess, how we all do now.

Cassie wouldn't have to debate with her morals, but it is also possible that she needed to debate with her morals. It's a possibility she needed to know whether she had them or not. And when the war came, she knew she had them.

Ax wouldn't have come to Earth. He wouldn't have found five very important things: Cinnamon buns, Chocolate, TV's, taste and sounds. Not to mention Visser Three. He would still exist, and eventually, he and Elfangor would've come down to a battle. If Elfangor lost, Ax probably would die trying to take Visser Three down.

And me? I would've gained absolutely nothing, and lost absolutely everything. I would've never become a hawk, which I'm still debating on whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. I would've never found out my father was an alien. I would've also been a dork, a dweeb even, for the rest of my middle and high school days, and probably grow up to be a nobody. A nothing. Not to mention I would never even know what Rachel and I had, what could've been.

But that was just our personal lives. Humans suffered under the Yeerk loss. People suffered, people were enslaved, people were killed. If the Yeerks didn't come, none of that would have happened. Was there any harm in changing history, so humans wouldn't be enslaved?

Yes. Yeerks had opened the door for mankind and aliens to meet. It had been about time, after all. Andalites and humans were quickly becoming equals, and we had advanced so far in so little time with the Andalites, so who knows what would have happened if the two races hadn't ever met?

Not to mention there was always another Yeerk. We would've killed the first one. But maybe 20, 30 years? Another Yeerk might eventually find Earth, but this time there would be no chance to stop the Yeerks.

No. We couldn't. We just couldn't kill the first Yeerk, no matter how much we wanted to. There was no way. This whole TITANIC thing...pointless.

But would the others know that? Would I be able to convince them...before it was too late?