Okay, this chapter, I admit, is a bit cheesy and perhaps corny, I know, but hold on please! Lots of sap later on in the story chapter due to Tobias' mushy thoughts for L'Aini, k peoples? So if you don't like mushy Animorphs love stories with Mary Sue characters manufactured by, moi, a complete psycho (said very proudly I might add! lol! j/k peoples!) then don't read this chapter!

Really, you shouldn't be reading this story anyway!

L'Aini

At home, my heart began to ache as Hanike coddled me and continued being his loving, sweet self.

(Darling. ) He breathed happily. (I have waited so long for this, for us to be here, together.) He looked lovingly over at Yani with his main eyes. (She is so sweet. I only hope that I can be half of the father that Kascherm was to her.)

I smiled with my main eyes. (Oh don't say things like that! I know you will be a perfect father to her.)

You see, even after all my uncertainties, I had merely decided it was better if I just accepted my fate. After all, it wasn't like it was a bad fate.

Tobias

I couldn't just accept that she was gone from my life, that she would really marry that sap and leave me all alone. I was used to her now, used to seeing her face every day. Used to knowing her presence beside me, like a friend. She was so distant from me like Rachel had once been, and though the pain of Rachel's passing was still fresh and agonizing in my heart, I had realized a newfound love for L'Aini, a love I had thought I couldn't possess for anyone else.

She was just so cute and sweet. Such a good, caring mother. And a loving person generally, even if she wasn't inclined to show it, like Rachel had been.

I'd gotten used to Rachel's pushing me away over the years. She just wasn't the cuddly type. I could understand that, and as much as I wanted her to melt the ice around her heart and finally give in to me, give in to love, I respected the fact that she wasn't, and would never be, like most young girls.

I recognized the darkness in her soul and help me, I even loved her for it. I still do love her. I will always love her and the pain of her passing will never fully leave me. I will never forget her, my one true first love.

But ever since L'Aini came into my life, it had, I don't know, somehow become more real, and more beautiful, and I didn't feel the need to daydream like I had as a kid.

"Please." I stood outside the ship, facing in the direction of her scoop, now in human form, alone on the fields of the Andalite home world, outside the great, dark ship. "Please don't leave me. Not again. Please."

I would go to her. Tomorrow, I decided, perhaps late at night, when her fiance was no longer present there. At least, by Andalite customs, he shoudn't be. Unless...

Unless they had been intimate already.

I shook my head. I didn't want to think of her, my L'Aini, being intimate with someone else, anyone besides being intimate with me.

"You fool." I said aloud to myself, laughing and sneering bitterly. "You've already become so jealous and possessive of her. Possessive of what you don't yet even have. You've already started calling her yours. When she'll never be."

"No." I replied to myself. "She will be mine. I'll go to her, tomorrow night, and tell her of my love for her. She'll have to listen. And she'll definitely have to believe me then. I don't care if I have to tell her on bended knee, or if I have to grovel, or whatever, but she will be mine at last."

I laughed sadly, realizing how bad I was talking to myself now. "Geez, you really are pathetic." I said to myself, talking to myself once again! Man, if anyone had heard me right now, they'd think I was either crazy, or, more likely given my current situation, infested by a Yeerk.

But I was neither. Well, okay, maybe a little crazy. Yeah, just a little bit. But I was really only crazy in love. Yep. Just in love.