A/N: I have to admit that I have no idea where I was going with this when I first started writing it. I was listening to Valentine's Day by Linkin Park one day and had a thought about writing a story based on it. I didn't know who was going to be in the story, but when while I was typing up some Animorphs fanfic, I happened to be listening to the song again and it just hit me: the song is an almost perfect fit for Jake. The song itself is about the singer burying his father on Valentine's Day (or maybe it was his father dying on Valentine's Day), and I just thought that it would fit in well with Jake, who we all know had to bury Rachel and Tom (well, not Rachel; apparently she was cremated, but you know what I mean). So here it is.
Oh, and if you were wondering, this doesn't take place in the same universe as my main Animorphs fanfic series After the War. That occurs in an alternate universe where the Animorphs who died in the books are actually still alive, and that they only asked the writers of the books in that 'verse to kill them off to avoid publicity. There's a lot of details in it that I'd rather not go through in a simple author's note, but if you're interested in knowing more then drop me a PM if you like. As always, enjoy this story, if this is the kind of story that you enjoy. – GR
Valentine's Day was normally a day to celebrate love, a way for people to get together and commemorate and remember the ties that bind them together. It wasn't usually a day for someone to mourn those they had lost; there were other days dedicated to that. And yet that was exactly what the man in the black coat walking to the cemetery in the pouring rain was about to do.
It didn't normally rain this heavy in February. The man couldn't remember the last time that it had rained this hard in February. Yet it captured his mood, and his outlook for the entire day so perfectly. It wasn't that he was avoiding doing it; he had religiously visited their graves every year that he could. He knew that this was always going to be a sad day, and that he could do nothing to lift his mood until he had drunk himself to sleep just in time for the next day.
The man nodded to the guard watching over the cemetery and the church inside, and the guard saluted the man back. Neither man said a word; neither man needed to. The man walked down the main road for a short distance before cutting across the grass to head for a secluded section of the cemetery. The section was marked by a statue of a young woman standing beside a bear in mid-roar carved from black granite and marble. Below the statue was a slate gray pedestal, and on it were carved the words TO THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES SO THAT WE MAY HAVE OUR FREEDOM.
They couldn't have known that everything would go down on the way it did. They had been fighting, and losing, a war for the very freedom of humanity; they didn't have time for the little things like trying to make sure everyone on his side won or even remember the very reason why he had wanted to fight in the first place. Only by the time that the dust settled and everyone was taking stock of their losses did he realize that he had lost not only his brother but also his cousin. And he had given the orders that resulted in both of their deaths.
Jake Berenson finally slowed his brisk walk to a snail's pace as he got nearer to the statue of his cousin Rachel, which also served as a memorial to all the lives lost in the war against the Yeerks, and then he finally stopped just three steps away from the statue. Valentine's Day was usually the only day that he could visit the memorial without being hounded by the paparazzi, or at least being followed all the way to the cemetery. He didn't know why it was, it just was. And he was glad for it, even if it was just for a few moments in the beginning. It gave him the time to think about what had happened, but then he would think about what he could have done different or if it would have been even possible for both Tom and Rachel to come out of that situation alive.
And just like that, he felt the pit of cold dread rise up from his stomach and swallow up his insides, and Jake was back on that fateful day that he had to say goodbye to his brother and his cousin for the last time. It had been threatening to rain that day, but no rain really fell. The clouds were dull and gray in the sky, and a cold and biting wind had chilled everyone to their bones. Jake couldn't remember what had happened during the funeral itself, only what had happened afterwards, what he had done.
Jake could remember how warm Rachel's ashes had felt in his hand when he had scooped up a handful to toss into the sea, before Tobias had flown out to sea with the rest of her ashes. He had asked to do it himself, and everyone was willing to grant Tobias the honor, but Jake had felt something, a duty to his cousin and fellow Animorph perhaps, which was why he had taken some of Rachel's ashes to throw out to the sea himself. "Oh, Rachel," he muttered softly as he fell down to his knees in front of the memorial. He remembered as the cold sea air blew right at his face, even blew some of Rachel's ashes back at him. In a strange way, he imagined it as Rachel giving him a sort of final embrace before her final departure, even though he knew that Rachel was never really the hugging and embracing type.
Rachel Berenson. "Xena the Warrior Princess," Marco had always called her. She may have been a girl but Jake had never seen a bigger pair of balls on anyone else before or since. And though she had never said anything, Rachel was very much willing to acknowledge that she was a murderer, and in doing so she had taken on the burden of guilt from the rest of them, allowing the rest of the Animorphs to believe that they were still able to fight without spilling innocent blood. She had become, in effect, the Animorphs' sin-eater. All of the terrible actions that they had done in the name of humanity's freedom and, later on in the war, their families' safety, Rachel had taken on for herself. Except for that last and final act of war in the Pool ship. That one, Jake had taken all for himself.
And Tom; poor, poor Tom Berenson. Jake's older brother. He was the one who was supposed to protect Jake and guide him, but because of this damned war against the Yeerks their roles had been pretty much reversed. Tom was the reason why Jake had decided to lead the Animorphs against the Yeerks, and whenever he found himself doubting that he and the Animorphs would be able to keep holding on against the Yeerk onslaught, he would turn his thoughts to his brother, and the slug he knew was wrapped around his brother's brain, and remember why he was still fighting.
Jake remembered how his insides had seemingly frozen and crumbled away once he had given Rachel the order to kill Tom's Yeerk. He knew exactly what that order had entailed, and yet he knew that he had to give it anyway, or else it was the rest of the Animorphs, and humanity's last hope against the Yeerks, who were going to die. Forget the fact that Jake only really became the Animorph that he was today because of his desire to free his brother from the empire of alien slugs seeking to take over planet Earth and turn humanity into their own army. Jake didn't even know the name of the worm who was in control of Tom at that fateful moment, and he cursed the Yeerk for having kept its anonymity even after death. "Oh, Tom," he muttered softly, so softly that had anyone else been there, they probably wouldn't have heard him speak.
The rain finally began to lift and eventually stopped altogether even though the air remained humid for quite a time afterwards, and through it all Jake remained standing right in front of the memorial for all those killed in the Yeerk war. A wind then blew in from right in front of Jake, sweeping up his rain-soaked coat and making it billow behind him. He shivered, and then he took a deep breath and inhaled some of that cold biting air into his lungs.
It had been five years since he had last said sorry to both of them. In the years immediately after their victory over the Yeerks, Jake had apologized over and over again for being responsible for both of their deaths, but as time went on and Jake could view his hindsight through a more logical filter, he had begun to accept that their deaths weren't all his fault and his fault alone. And by the time of Jake's final apology, he wasn't even sorry that he was responsible for killing them. He apologized for apologizing like a groveling urchin, and he had promised them that he was not going to apologize for anything anymore.
Jake had also been cultivating a new personality for himself, a personality based on the public's current outlook of him. Before he had been hailed as a hero, the great and fearless leader of the Animorphs, fighting against incredible odds against the seemingly unassailable Yeerks. Today he was seen by many as a mass murderer for his venting of the Yeerk Pool ship, sending an estimated seventeen thousand Yeerks out into the vacuum of space. And strangely enough, Jake actually found himself enjoying the negative press. It had turned off a lot of people from him, and he was finally glad for the break from all the attention. And whenever the public got interested in him again, he was now ready with the thousand-yard stare and the half-crazed ramblings that were guaranteed to get them scrambling away from him once again. Not that he had to be ready to act like it. There were days where he was genuinely suffering from bouts of PTSD, and those were never good days.
And his new persona had also come at a price. Nobody ever seemed to talk about it, but Jake was sure that everyone had to notice it. He was alone, as alone as he had ever felt since he had become both war hero and war criminal. Yes, he still had his supporters, and he was still friends with the rest of the surviving Animorphs, but his life now felt like one massive void that would never seem to be filled no matter what or who tried to take the space. Not even Cassie, much as both of them had tried their hardest to make it work. But in the end, they both realized that what they had felt during the war was only a rush of emotions that they both didn't understand beyond the fact that it might have been love. Except it wasn't. Maybe if there had been no such thing as the Yeerks or the Animorphs, the emotions that both Jake and Cassie had felt for each other could have become love, but the war had fooled them both into thinking that there was something more to the emotions that they felt for each other other than what they really were, just emotions. At least they had parted on amicable terms, and they were still talking to each other, at least whenever Cassie wasn't busy lobbying on behalf of either the Hork-Bajir or the nothlits.
Jake reached out and laid a hand on the cool granite of the memorial statue. He took another deep breath of the cool air and let it seep into his insides once again before letting it out slowly and deliberately. And just as deliberately, Jake let only a single tear slide down from the corner of his right eye and down his cheek, and then once that tear dropped to the ground there was no evidence at all that Jake Berenson had ever shed it. He then patted the memorial affectionately, and then he stood up from in front of the memorial and walked away.
A/N 2: Yeah, after the first few paragraphs I really went off the boil with this one, but I didn't want to let this one go to waste so I've decided to push through it even though I've kind of lost my inspiration and it's no longer Valentine's Day. But nobody's perfect. So I still hope that you enjoy it anyway. And don't forget to leave a comment or a review if you've gone this far. It only takes up a few minutes of your time and it lets me know what you think of my writing, and I very much appreciate knowing what people think of my work. – GR