Thanks to the three of you who reviewed. Anyone else reading: REVIEW!!
And I fully retract any statements asking you to tell me if you're confused. If you're not confused at least a little by Tobias' chapter, well, then you're more intelligent than I am, because it confuses the heck out of me! ;)
Chapter 4-Cassie
"So," I said, dusting my hands off on my overalls. "That's the barn. You said at the last place you volunteered at, you learned the basics of animal care?" I asked.
"How to feed the animals and clean out the cages, yes," Nathaniel grinned, his teeth very white against his dark skin only a few shades lighter than mine. "They wouldn't let me give medicine or deal with injuries, since I'm only 17."
"So I just have you to do grunt work," I said.
"Basically," he replied. "I'd like to learn more, but I understand if you don't want to run the risk of being sued."
"Well, I'll see how you do with grunt work. Maybe I can teach you some things, under supervision," I said, and looked at my watch. "It's six. Will your parents be expecting you soon, or would you like to stay for dinner?"
"My guardians don't seem to be the type to mind much if I'm late. I would love to stay for dinner."
I felt a wave of sympathy for the boy. I could tell that I liked him, already, and the thought that he didn't really have a home only deepened my instincts to mother him. "Well, come on then. I think my husband said he was cooking tonight."
"Thanks, Mrs. Eis-"
"Cassie, please," I responded.
And so, Nathaniel began to make his way into our family. As the four of us sat there in silence, my daughter cleared her throat. "So, do you know anything about your parents?" Katie asked, ever without tact.
He closed his eyes briefly. "I know my mother was black, and my father white, much like yours," he said, looking at Katie. "I know where they went to school, and what they majored in, and things like that, but statistics don't account for much. I would have liked to get to know them, and I wish I could remember for myself what they were like."
His eyes were on me then, full and hazel, and something flickered upon his face. At the time I took it for longing. But I couldn't help thinking of my own son, Thomas, taken from me by a curse of the blue box. I did the math in my head. He was about the same age as Thomas, and looking at him opened up fresh wounds, and the question that buzzed in my head since that terrible day I discovered he couldn't stay with me: when will I see you again, my son?
Nathaniel left after the meal. I asked him if he wanted a ride, but he said he needed the exercise, and didn't live to far away. But as I stood on the stoop after he disappeared into darkness, I could have sworn I heard wings.
Chapter 5- Tobias
"Are you almost ready?" I asked Rachel as she brushed her teeth. "We're going to be late!"
She walked out of the bathroom and kissed me softly, tasting of fluoride and mint. The corners of her lips turned up in the slightest, most mischievous of smiles. "Jake wouldn't mind if we're slightly late to one meeting."
I slid one hand around her waist, and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "We've been slightly late to every meeting since Jake and Cassie moved in together."
She pulled me closer, and mint filled my nose entirely. "It's all their fault for getting themselves engaged and politely kicking me out. Cassie never distracted me as much as you do, when she and I shared an apartment."
"I would hope not," I said, brushing my lips on hers before pulling away and beginning to demorph. "Now let's g-" I said, stopping abruptly as a beak appeared on my face.
She began her morph to eagle, graceful human features giving way to the powerful, but no less graceful form of an eagle. Wings had just begun to appear from arms when-
"Arrrrrrreeeeeeeehhhhhh!" she yelled in a horrifying yell that was equally human and eagle.
Rachel! I called, beginning to morph to human as quickly as I could. Morph out!
She was paler than usual when she finally demorphed. "That was like no pain I've ever felt before," she said, resting her hands on her abdomen protectively.
She tried again, with the same results.
"We'll take the car, " I assured her.
Needless to say, we were very late. We all still met in Ax's scoop, because we figure that no one's apartment was completely safe, what with people living on all sides. We couldn't drive to Cassie's farm and park there, because her parents would be suspicious as to why we were tramping around in their woods, so we had to drive to the state park parking lot, and hike all the way out to the scoop.
When we arrived, over an hour late, Marco smirked. "Too busy to come to a meeting?" he asked. I ignored the innuendo.
"We were worried sick," said Jake pointedly. "You cannot arrive late to meetings without good reason."
"We had one," said Rachel bristling. Then she quieted, realizing that to tell why would reveal that she felt normal human sensations like, say, pain.
"And?" said Cassie, waiting.
Rachel looked at me. "Rachel can't morph," I explained.
"What?" asked the others in semi-unison.
She sighed. "I mean, I can, but I can only get half way. And then, there's this pain. It's worse than anything I've ever felt. I can barely concentrate hard enough to morph out."
"A Yeerk weapon?" asked Jake, looking at Ax.
Where is the pain? asked Ax, focusing on Rachel.
She placed her hands on her stomach. "It stabs me right here."
Based on my knowledge of human anatomy and Andalite science, I do not believe this problem is due to the Yeerks. I believe the cause of this problem is easily found. Rachel, he began, in the last 60 to 48 hours or so, have you and Tobias… he paused, thinking for a second participated in the human mating ritual the humans on The Young and the Restless participate in often?
Everyone was silent for a second. "Here on Earth, we like to call that sex," said Marco, breaking the silence.
I felt a blush rising from my neck. "Yes," Rachel said simply.
Then Rachel is with child.
I nearly choked on my own tongue. "Excuse me?" I asked.
The pain is a safety device, so to speak. If an Andalite female is with child, and she morphs more than 48 hours after conception, then the child would not live though the trauma. The morphing technology is designed to let any pregnant female know that she is in danger of harming her child.
"Well," said Jake. "The meeting wasn't actually about anything too important. And I don't think we'll be able to get anything done after that little piece of information."
"Tobias," I head someone say, and looked around. No one had spoken. "Tobias!"
I shook my head and blinked. I found myself in a dingy kitchen, not in the forest any longer. "Tobias, you drifted off again." The voice belonged to Raven, my daughter. I had been lost in a daydream. Had it really happened that way? I couldn't remember.
The worst part of the daydreams wasn't the way Raven looked at me. It was waking up and having to realize Rachel was gone all over again, each time. I wished I could be lost in them forever, that I could relive my life from the day Elfangor gave us the power up until the horrible night I lost her, and never wake up. Even the worst times then were better than the best times now.
I almost ended my life once. But…Raven. She was all I had left of the only person to truly care for me. She was my anchor.
"The first time I kissed your mother was in 1934," I said.
"You were born in 1985, Tobias," said Raven, not even looking up from her dinner of ramen noodles.
"I know. We used a time machine. We couldn't stop Jake or Washington from dying, but then she came back to life after she died at Trafalgar, and I was so happy to see her that I kissed her in front of the racists."
"That's great," she said unenthusiastically. She didn't mean it.
I looked down at my noodles, confused. "It's cold. Where's the rat meat?"
"We're not that poor."
"I need the rat. Need to feel it squirming beneath my talons, need to feel the pressure until the skin gives way and I can tear the meat off in hot steaming chunks. Like peaches, warm peaches, beating with a heartbeat filled with fear…"
"Uh huh," she said, barely breaking stride. "Tobias, let me take your bowl from you." She reached forward to take the bowl, and I pushed my chair back suddenly, screeching and flapping my wings, startled from her movement. But my wings didn't work, and I fell out of my chair. My body slammed into the cool tile, and the hawk that lived inside my head screamed as it always did, unable to understand why it's wings no longer worked.
The hawk, me, we needed the sky. We yearned for it as we yearned for Rachel.
And both were forever beyond us.