A/N~I am depressed. Truly. I come online and find how many reviews? ZERO! Not one, single, solitary review! Sigh. Please, please, PLEASE R&R!

I reached Erek's house. "She's not here," Erek said.

"What do you mean, she's not here?" I asked.

"Just what I said. She said she was leaving to go to the meeting, and hasn't come back yet."

I frowned, then morphed my osprey. I wasn't sure where she was going to be, but I had an idea.

I headed over towards Tobias' meadow, then kept going. Tabetha had been spending more and more time here. I didn't think it was good for her, but she didn't listen.

It was a little waterfall, kind of small, but pretty. There was a cave in the side of the rock next to it, where she liked to go and think. I swooped inside and demorphed, to find her sitting there, staring at the water.

"Hi, Marco," she said listlessly. "Come to tell me how weak I am? Something I don't already know?"

I rolled my eyes at her. "Yeah, that's it. That's exactly what I came to tell you. I better watch you, girl, you're becoming psychic."

She sighed. "Jake's right, Marco. I came to close to breaking. I'm a danger. I'm not as brave as Rachel."

"Tabetha," I said in exasperation, "you're one of the bravest people I know. Trust me, you don't want to be braver than Rachel. That's borderline crazy."

She looked at the waterfall again and did not answer. I touched her back, and she flinched. "Tabetha, it'll be OK…"

"Don't do that mushy shit on me, OK?" she snapped. "I don't need it from you."

Not for the first time I got angry. "I care about you, and I'm sick of you treating me like a piece of crap every time I try to show it!" Angrily I kicked at a rock, forgetting I wasn't wearing shoes. Great. Now my toe was broken and I was mad.

"Do you think I want anyone to care about me? The only thing you care about is making stupid jokes!"

"Don't take out how pissed you are at Jake on me! That's not my freaking fault!"

Immediately she swirled around to face me. The furious anger on her face deflated. "I'm sorry. I just…I don't see why he's that way to me. What did I do to him?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. Don't do that to me again."

"Yeah, because you're so thin-skinned," she shot.

I was tired of arguing with her. I morphed to osprey. "Marco, wait," she said. "Please don't leave. I'm sorry."

I stared at her intensely for a few seconds. ~You know, Tabetha, you should stop coming up here. It only makes you angrier.

"I know, alright? I know it's bad. But…I just can't deal with everything, you know? And I morph to dog and get happy, morph falcon and fly…and come up here and get away, you know? I can't take everything."

~Tobias served as a warning, I said. ~The Ellimist won't come to you.

With that I flew away.

I had been at home for about an hour when the phone rang. I picked it up to hear, to my surprise, Rachel.

"So the blonde bombshell has finally decided she needs Mighty Marco?" I joked. It was a strained joke. I wasn't in the mood for jokes.

"Bite your tongue, Marco, or I'll cut it out," she snarled. "I talked to Cassie."

"And???"

"Jake blames Tabetha for Cassie telling him things were done between them. So now he's taking it out on her."

"That's more or less what we figured." I sighed. "I went up to see Tabetha this afternoon."

"Can't say I'm surprised. What did she say?"

"She basically turned as cold as possible until I pointed out that she was taking her anger at Jake out on me. She only warmed up a little. I don't know what we're going to do."

"Can't you think of anything?"

"No," I said. "I'm not good with people, emotions, right and wrong, stuff like that. We need Cassie."

"Cassie's too mad at Jake to do anything," Rachel said with a sigh. "I think we need to wait for them to cool down."

"Yeah. Well…I'll talk to you later."

"Yeah, OK. And Marco?"

"Yes???"

"Don't ever mention to anyone that I know your number." With that she hung up.

I stared at the receiver for a moment. Surely we hadn't reached an unsolvable problem…had we?

A/N~Hope you liked it! Please review!