The Gate: Chapter 4
A/N: As God as my witness, the next chapter will be the end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Elfangor
I let them take Tobias to the hospital. I said I would follow but I didn't. Loren had already left with Cory. Instead, I went up to the roof of my home. That's where I kept my telescope. It was a weak, dull piece of glass that I had bought with my first paycheck. Loren had been angry that I had spent a whole paycheck on it. We had just been married and money was scarce. Loren's family wouldn't help us either. I didn't understand why they hated me. Loren said it was because we had been dating for only a month. She told me that most people waited a year or more. I couldn't wait. The human form I had taken would not let me wait.
It took three months to get my impulses under control. It wasn't the food or the speaking; it was the strong sexual desire. The ancient desire to mate and procreate overwhelmed me. I understood why there was such a large population on this planet. Part of what helped was the telescope. I looked into it and tried to locate several systems I had been to and known of, including my own. It scared me that I could see the Yeerk system and not mine. I guess it didn't matter because of Z-space travel but the thought rolled in my mind a lot.
From the beginning of my marriage to Loren I have tried to make this world a better place. It started out with recycling everything. Nothing in our New York home was new. I gave as much as I could to charity. I even sponsored one of those over seas children so they could get proper health care and schooling. (I now have my own foundation.) From what I could tell, humans were advancing rapidly and I didn't want it to be the best man gets the best health care and provisions and use women for breeding, and throw the disabled in the gutter. That's what advancement does to a species; instead of bettering it, it destroys it.
I looked through my telescope. I located the Agidobi system, the Itaricterin system, and the former Hork-Bajir system. The only inhabited (or once inhabited) systems this side of the universe. I just stared through the device. Humans really are in quite a deserted place.
The first one I mentioned, they had done something to their sun to make it last forever, supposedly. It didn't work. Their sun expanded into the size of a red giant swallowing up their planet. The Itaricterin system was torn apart by subspace fluctuations. It's looks beautiful from here, but there it is chaos. One second it is five thousand years ago and the next it is tomorrow. The species have long since died out. Their metabolism couldn't handle it. Then, well, it is well known what happened to the Hork-Bajir. I would rather be torn apart by subspace tidal waves than be a controller.
I stared out into space. I stared close to the atmosphere. Sometimes a plane will dash by or you will see a satellite. This time, I saw something strange. It was a red dot barely visible against the night sky. At first I thought it a meteor, but it was moving way to slow; and it seemed to be slowing down. I calculated the size, distance, and E.T.A. in my head. It was the size of a fighter, a few miles away, and it would land in the next few minutes.
My worst fears had been awakened. It suddenly hit me, all they had to do was monitor the nuclear, radio, and microwave emissions coming from this planet to know that something, someone, was here. . .
Rachel
I walked back and forth across the waiting room. I looked down, but I soon stopped. I noticed that my stomach was bulging out a little. So, I stared at the ceiling instead. It had been an hour since they started working on Tobias. It couldn't be any slower. I couldn't believe that Jason had actually figured it out. I didn't tell anyone in Renhaussler where I was. Mom assured me she didn't tell Jason where I was. Maybe she was lying to me. I knew my mother didn't trust me.
I was disturbed by a noise getting louder as it came down the hallway. Suddenly, about thirty people came bursting into the waiting room. There was a bunch of lights and microphones. I realized what they were. The Media. I had never seen anything like it. They were like one body with two-million heads, and hands. There was a doctor trying to pry them off his back.
"Tobias is my priority, not yours!" The doctor yelled. I ran to him and tugged on his arm.
"What do you want?!" He shouted. I jumped back. "Oh, I'm sorry. Those reporters are having their field day. I can see it now, "Attempted assassination of computer billionaire's son."
"Is he all right?" I asked
"Tobias? That's depends. Friend or family?"
I looked down, and said, "Both."
"Huh?"
"Well, I'm his girlfriend, and foster sister," I said.
He gave me a weird look and said, "Could you be Rachel by any chance?"
"Well, yeah."
"Well, I found this in his pocket. You must be special"
"Yeah."
I sat down in the nearest chair. I opened the box and looked inside. It was a ring! It was a diamond ring. I thought that maybe it was fake, but then I thought of the money he had. It couldn't be fake. I stared at it for a few minutes. It shined in the light the most spectacular way. I would have screamed if I weren't in a public place. Could it be a; oh, what's the word, yeah: engagement ring. I sighed. It couldn't be. I'm only sixteen. It's probably just a plain gift, an expensive plain gift. Still, it's beautiful.
The only thing this ring did for me was to make me worry. We had been there a long time. Dad wasn't here yet. I saw Loren with Cory across the room. Cory was being fussy. She probably didn't notice me with the doctor. I put the ring in my pocket, walked over and sat down next to Loren.
"Can I hold her?" I said
"Huh, oh, yeah, go ahead. I need to find those diapers. I know there in there somewhere." She fumbled with the diaper bag for a few seconds then she stopped. I realized she was crying.
She turned around and she said, "I'm a terrible mother. He's been shot and I'm just sitting here. I think how I've raised him. I had experiences when I was a child. They made me hate the world. You see, I never told him, 'Don't talk to strangers.' I always said, 'Never trust anybody.' That is why I was always a little weary of you. I never trust anybody outright.
"It's all my fault," I whispered.
"Why?"
"That was Jason. My ex-boyfriend. He's extremely jealous. He thinks we're still together." Now, it was my turn to cry. I know I'm doing it a lot. I guess its hormones. "I never told Tobias how much I – I," I was too nervous to finish the sentence in front of her. She was looking at me with a weird look. I think she was figuring it out.
"Oh no, deary. I know you've been through some traumatizing events, but you can't, you don't know what that involves. For one thing, you've only known him a few months."
"But Dad said he knew after a week."
"Yes, well, we had some experiences of our own that shaped our relationship. Sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake. Don't get me wrong, I love him with all my heart and soul, but I wonder sometimes if I could have had a completely normal life with someone else, or if I was destined to be with Alan. I can tell you that sometimes I feel that I'm not in control, and it scares me," she told me.
I gave her a sympathetic look. Towards the end her speech she kind of lost some sense. So she didn't know what was going on. She didn't know she was dead. But, I thought, what if she's not dead. I remembered Cassandra's speech. People wake up in a bed they had slept in 350 of their years ago. I thought about that. Would the dead person wake up and find the world just as it was then. What if somebody from that world was still alive, would they be projected in this dream world?
I don't know, I don't think it mattered much. It wouldn't help me get back to the real world. I rocked Cory gently when suddenly she burst out with loud crying sobs. I forgot that Loren was supposed to change her. We laughed and Loren set her down and changed her. When she was finished she handed her back to me.
"Why do I have to hold her?" I asked, on the edge of being annoyed.
"Because she seems to like you."
"Oh." So I took her in my arms. She went out like a light. She sighed and went to sleep.
About two hours later, a doctor came in and woke Loren and me up. It was about nine o'clock. Tobias was conscious. We followed the doctor down a long hallway. In room 624 lay my boyfriend Tobias. His leg was propped up very delicately.
Tobias
The last thing I remember was Rachel holding the monstrous hole in my leg. I remember the blinding pain that went through my whole body. I couldn't quite remember the guy who shot me. I could see him grab Rachel and sticking the gun in her neck. I wanted to hurt him, right then. First, it was Brian. Then a lunatic sneaks on to our property and tries to kill us both. I'm starting to wonder what had gone on in New York that made her come here.
I thought of the press. They should be sneaking in here in about an hour or so. I heard a few footsteps, but it wasn't them. It was a doctor, and the two most important women in my life. Mom and Rachel. I tried to sit up, knowing what Rachel would do, but I couldn't. Instead I found the controls for the bed. I raised it up and found I could only move it about a foot before my foot started to scream.
Rachel ran up to my bed and kissed me, slow and methodically. That made me feel a little better.
"Hi, Tobias. My name is Doctor Visser. I worked on your leg," he said. Then he started his prognosis, "Tobias, you're leg is badly damaged. That bullet shattered everything. You're very lucky, but on the other hand you're not. I don't see you walking in about a year."
"What!" All three of us said at the same time.
"Yes, well, that weapon was no BB gun. However, with physical and occupational therapy we'll get you walking in no time. Meanwhile, I would suggest you get around in a wheelchair."
Rachel had tears in her eyes. It reminded of when she found out I was going to be a bird for the rest of my life. The silent, solemn tears knowing I wasn't going to be any better any time soon. The doctor left and so did Mom; she was crying.
Rachel pulled up a chair and sat next to me.
"What are we going to do?" She asked.
"I'll be fine, don't worry about me."
"I can't do that. I love you." Her eyes bulged out and her cheeks went red. I don't think she meant to say that. She rested her head on the arm rails of the bed.
I leaned over and whispered, "I love you too."
The doctor came in with a wheelchair ruining our magic moment. A couple of nurses helped me out, and I was glad I had on a large hospital gown.
"Tobias, you're mother went home to get you some clothes."
"Why?"
"Because we have no reason to keep you here. Your home is reasonably healthy to live in. Now, I want you to put up your right hand and say, 'I will never'"
I put my right hand up and repeated his words.
"I will never."
"Put anything on my leg."
"Not even a milligram of weight."
"For it could have disastrous effects."
"Good," he said. "You keep that promise, and you Rachel, be his Jiminy Cricket for me." Then he left. I looked at Rachel. She was barely containing herself with laughter.
"Which part is funnier? The fact that I'm wearing a dress, or that I had say an oath." She didn't answer me. She was laughing too hard.
She calmed down enough to say, "I'm just really glad you're alive." She came over and hugged me very delicately.
"I'm not a porcelain doll, you know," he said. I wrapped my arms around her as hard as I could, nearly asphyxiating her. "You know for some reason, I don't think being alive really matters in this world."
"Do you want to go back?" She asked.
"Well, I don't know. I mean, who wouldn't give up flying like a bird for the rest of his days."
"Tobias, I remember something about the other world. Hawks only live about twenty years, or something. I don't like the trade-off."
"That's another part. We don't know the full details of what happened back there. We could've been on a suicide mission that morning we came here. We could have been fighting a lost cause. Maybe we were the only members of that army left and the war already lost. Maybe, we just showed up a few minutes early for the matinee," I said. She was shocked, I guess. I had struck a chord with her.
"I'm really glad you're alive," she said.
"Do you want to go back?" I asked.
"Of course, I do!" Her eyes went wide.
"Why?" I noticed she turned really red.
"Circumstances," she said. She looked away. She wasn't going to say anymore. I decided not to push her.
About ten minutes later, mom came in with some clothes.
Elfangor
I ran down the steps leading from the roof to the bedroom. I ran out the door and nearly ran down Loren.
"Their here!" I shouted.
"There here! Their here! Their here!" I screamed. What I would give to have my Andalite form again. Why did I give it up? I knew this day would come. I should have prepared.
"Who's here?!" She asked. She grabbed my shoulders and planted me to where I stood.
I felt adrenaline rush through my body. Every muscle became stone. My eyes became small and darkened. My nostrils flared, and my lip quivered. I defiantly said, "THEM"
Her eyes went wide, and her grip on my arms loosened. She whispered, "What are we going to do?"
"I am going to see what they are up to. They are not getting this planet!"
"What are you going to do?" She asked.
