Disclaimer: I don't own anything. K.A. Applegate does. Lucky her.

A/N: Okay, I know I've been really slack with this fic, and I haven't updated in a long, LONG time. But here's what will probably the third last chapter, the lasts being The Ellimist's and Jake's. Tobias' was probably one of the first one's I wrote, and what was probably what started this 'final thought' thing. But thanks to everyone who reviewed this story, and hope you like Tobias.

Also, my pen name has changed to 'Belia,' and so has the summary for this story.

***

Tobias.

Yeah, I think that's right. Tobias something-or-other. I've forgotten my last name. It had been a waste of memory anyway, considering I never used it. I hardly ever use my first name either.

It's been a long time.

Right now? I'm onboard The Rachel, the ship. Named after her.

And then the emotions rush forth in an onslaught of unwanted and wanted reminders. The emotions that had been released from its prison that held them for so long. Which sounds more cliqued than I had liked.

Love. Pain. Sadness. Worry. Desperation.

And somewhere deep, down deeper than I had expected, an anger. And it surprised me, because when Rachel died, that anger had been barely suppressible. Like a fierce animal barely holding back its urge to kill.

In my struggle, I had locked those feelings away, in the mind of an insignificant human trapped inside the body of a dangerous hawk. I had done this, because I did not know if I could've trusted myself anymore. Not with feeling like that. 

But now? That feeling seemed deflated, lost. Perhaps keeping it at bay wore it down, it let me think straight. Get on with my life. The only anger I felt now was a slight trickle of hatred for the Yeerks. Strange, how I didn't seem to blame Jake anymore. Strange, how I didn't even blame myself. Maybe time does heal everything. Or maybe it just helps you forget.

*

Rachel had been everything I had, except for the few people I had been surrounded with in life due to an Ellimist's meddling. Like an Andalite shorm through unthinkable circumstances. And an Andalite father. A mother I didn't even remember. A past that I didn't want to remember. A future that I would probably never see.

Then there was Marco. Cassie. Jake. The Hork Bajir. Toby. Erek. They all had mattered once, they all had cared once. But I don't know when it had stopped. Maybe it was just me, but in the end, everything seemed to fade. The end of the battle was finally here, and it was like we could drop it all because it didn't matter any more. That we could let go of bonds, forget ties, betray friendships…

Did it happen to us? Are the people around me with different reasons? On this ship here, on what perhaps is a suicide mission, is there anymore truth? Or just more guarded emotions, hidden secrets, concealed motives… Or were we just what I had always believed we had been? A group of kids caught in a world we would never understand. A group of unfortunates (or is that fortunates?) chosen by a force beyond our knowledge to fight in a war we had never even come to realize the significance of?  

But for Rachel, it was different. Despite the war, despite herself, her warrior exterior, Rachel had cared for me in a way no one had. And she had never stopped caring. And… I guess though I know I can't die with Rachel by my side, I can die with her inside my heart. And beside me, my friends. My only friends.  

Because I've come to learn something I thought I'd never learn.

That I guess, in a world – in a time – like the one I exist in, as a hawk, as a human, things are different. They're different, not in a way that they're harder, or more painful, but in a way that makes me unique. I'm not unlucky. Unlucky is the Hork Bajir and Humans that were caught in the middle of a war they could not understand. I could understand. At least I was given that. Unlucky is the innocent, unarmed victims we killed, in a supposedly fair war. I wasn't innocent. I wasn't unarmed.

I wasn't unlucky, or a freak. At least not one you would feel sorry for. Pity didn't work for me anymore. Hasn't for a long time. I was just different. Just a part of history that had never been heard of before. Unusual. Uncommon. Special. One of a kind, I guess.

Like Rachel. 

***

Was that okay? I was reading this over, and this is probably one of my favourite one's, but maybe that's just because I like the character Tobias. Anyhow, please review!