Rachel

Until the moment I saw Tobias flying away, I hadn't let myself think about the reality of how my relationship with Tobias was over.

I had thought about it only in hypotheticals-I knew I was going to have to talk to Tobias, of course. But now any chance I ever had of sitting down with him and having a normal break up-no, that had been delusional all along, hadn't it? How could I have ever thought I could just cleanly break up with a guy that had no real family and lived in a field, and then immediately after start dating one of his few friends? That sounded insane even without the hawk body and alien invasion.

But it still would have had to be better than Tobias actually seeing Marco and I in bed together.

"Rachel?" Marco asked again, lifting himself up so that he could look to the window this time. "What did you see? Was it….?"

"Yeah. It was."

We both surveyed the situation. I was straddling Marco, completely naked except for my panties, in his bed, which was noticeably rumpled. Marco's hair was sticking up in several places, and he still had pillow marks on his cheek from our nap. It was clear we had been in the bed for a while, and Tobias's hawk eyes wouldn't have missed a single detail.

My entire body felt numb, but I found myself surprisingly calm now that the worst had happened. "I did this all wrong. I should have gone to Tobias first, but…"

I trailed off, realizing what I had been about to say. But I didn't want to wait? What kind of ridiculous excuse was that? After three years with Tobias, I couldn't even wait a few extra hours to break up with him first? Tobias had no one else in the world besides the other five Animorphs and some friendly Hork Bajir. And Marco and I had taken two of those people away from him.

"What do you want to do?" Marco asked me.

I climbed out of the bed and began picking up what I could find of my clothing. "I have to go talk to him."

"Right. Of course." Marco snagged his own underwear off the floor and awkwardly stumbled into them. "You should go talk to him and tell him that...um...shit, I don't know, this really looks bad, doesn't it? Just tell him you're sorry, I guess, and that you were really upset today and maybe-"

I stopped him. "Marco, I'm not going to lie to Tobias anymore."

Marco pulled a t-shirt on over his head, messing up his hair even more. "Then what are you going to tell him?"

"Well, it's probably going to be a bit redundant at this point, but I guess I'm going to tell him that I have feelings for you."

Marco sat back down hard on his bed. "You are?"

I pulled my hair up into a ponytail in an attempt to conceal my own bedhead. "Do you have a problem with that?"

Marco looked down and pretended to be concerned with arranging his pillows. "No, but don't you think that….you guys will break up?"

I stared at Marco. "I'm sorry, were you under the impression that you and Tobias were going to become sister wives or something?"

Marco laughed nervously. "Well, no, but...just to make sure that I am understanding everything, you are going to go to Tobias and tell him that you are ending your relationship with him."

"That is correct."

"And you are also going to tell him that you are doing this because you have decided that you would prefer to be with me instead."

"Well, if I said it that way I would sound like a cold-hearted psychopath, but that is the general idea, yes."

Marco exhaled loudly. "Holy shit."

He looked so confused that for a moment I was concerned I had somehow misjudged things, despite the fact that he had told me he loved me twice today already. "Is that not what you wanted to happen?"

Marco jumped back to his feet. "I mean, of course it is! Tobias is my friend, but yeah, I want you to break up with him. I want you to be with me. I just can't believe all of this is really happening. I guess I'm freaking out a little bit that he saw us. I can't believe you're so calm."

I checked myself in the mirror and smoothed my hair down one last time before I started morphing to owl, trying to do my best to make sure that when I found Tobias I wouldn't look like I had just rolled out of bed with someone else. (I didn't want Tobias to see us. I really wish it hadn't happened like that, but...I know I can't make it okay, but I just need to go talk to him now.)

Marco nodded and opened his window for me.

(I'll see you later,) I promised him as I flew off into the night.

…

Tobias was already human when I found him in his usual field, near where Ax lived. His human face these days is almost as expressionless as the hawk. He started talking before I could even finish demorphing, and he voice was as close to yelling as I have ever heard Tobias.

"I feel so fucking stupid that I asked you, just a couple of days ago, if there was something going on with you and Marco. And I believed you when you said no! I fucking believed you!"

"Tobias-" I tried to interrupt, but he cut me off.

"No, Rachel, let me finish. I think you owe me that much."

I nodded. It was almost completely dark, and the air was starting to become chilly. Tobias was pacing around, as he often did when he was in human morph. Today he was kicking up grass and dirt as he moved.

"I hate that you guys have made me feel stupid. And that I thought Marco was my friend. Fuck, I really hate you right now. And Marco. God, do I hate Marco. Why did it have to be Marco? Don't answer that. Unless...maybe you could answer that?"

"Tobias…"

He stopped his pacing abruptly. "Is it because he's human? Can you tell me that?"

"Tobias, you're human." I reached out for him, but he jerked away.

"We both know that's not entirely true. Look at me," Tobias said, spreading his arms out wide. "I haven't felt right in this body for years. The only reason I morphed to human for this is so I wouldn't be tempted to fly away. And it's still all I want to do."

I swallowed around the growing lump in my throat. "Tell me something. Were you ever going to do it? If the war ended...were you going to be human again?"

Tobias forced a smile. "I guess that doesn't matter anymore, does it?"

"It matters to me. You matter to me."

"You never answered my question. Is it because Marco would never have to make that choice?"

"No," I admitted. "Or at least not entirely." But I couldn't go any farther. What was there that I could say? Tell Tobias that we had no future. That even if he did become human, and give up everything that he loved about his life as a hawk, that I still could not see us being together after the war ended?

He already knew. He had to know. We had both done the same thing, the easy thing, and chosen a relationship with no real future so that we could focus on surviving in the present.

Tobias nodded. "I've always wondered if maybe one day I would become human again and everything would be perfect for us. But deep down, I don't know if I could give it up. I never had a life as a human before all of this. I don't know how to picture one after. What would I even do? I'm a middle school drop out."

"Did you ever picture a life with me?" I asked.

Tobias didn't answer right away. "I wanted to," he said. "But it was easier to just think about things as they happened."

We were so much the same. Maybe that was the problem. Tobias stopped pacing abruptly.

"It should have been me. I should have been the one to help you at the school, but instead I went there to try and stop you"

"You couldn't have stopped me."

Tobias laughed and it almost sounded real. "Yeah, well, I didn't realize you were going to have an actual bomb."

I smiled weakly.

"I figured you would just morph to elephant again, try to smash some of the place up," Tobias continued, kicking at the dirt as he talked and not looking directly at me. "Where did that bomb come from anyway? You never said."

"Mertil and Gafinilan. It wasn't Ax, if that's what you wondering."

"No, I thought maybe Marco knew how to do it from a video game or something."

This time I laughed. "I'm not an expert, but I don't think that's how video games work."

Tobias smiled wryly. "No, I guess not." He finally looked up from the pile of dirt and grass he had been working at with his bare feet. "It still should have been me. I knew you were going to try and do something. I knew you wouldn't let your sister go like that."

"I couldn't ask you," I admitted. "I knew you would say yes, and I couldn't get you killed like that-"

"You shouldn't have had to ask me. I should have just been there."

Like Marco had been. Maybe the war didn't have as much to do with things as we thought. Maybe Tobias and I just weren't the right people for each other.

"Elfangor became human for your mom, didn't he? Before the Ellimist did...whatever it is he does, Elfangor morphed human and lived on Earth with your mom, right?"

I thought Tobias might not be following my train of thought, but he got it right away. "Yeah. He gave up everything for her-his body, his family, his entire world…"

Tobias trailed off as we both thought about how that love story had ended. It was so dark now that I could barely see his face in the moonlight. He finally sat back down, and I sat on the grass facing him, so close that our knees were touching.

"I'm so sorry, Tobias," I whispered. "There's no excuse for the way I did things. I should have told you sooner. I was in denial; I kept telling myself that nothing was happening, and then-"

"I really don't need any details," Tobias cut me off, his voice colder than it had been a moment ago. "Please don't tell me that you didn't realize how in love with Marco you are, or some bullshit like that. Just let me hate you guys."

In the dark, it took me a moment to realize that Tobias was demorphing back to his hawk body. I guessed there was nothing left to say. I deserved to have him hate me for a long time, possibly forever. "I'm sorry," I said again anyway, one last time, as he lifted his wings to fly away.

(Goodbye, Rachel.)

I thought Marco might be waiting for me when I got back to my house, but it turned out to be Jake perched on my windowsill as a great horned owl.

"Did Marco tell you?" I asked once we were both in my bedroom and demorphed.

"I have a feeling he left out some details, but I think I got the gist of it," Jake said, his voice low so my mother and sisters wouldn't hear. "How did Tobias hande things? Are we going to have a problem?"

I flopped down on my bed. "I don't know, Jake. It wasn't great."

"So is that it? Are you and Tobias done?"

"Yes, we're done, but no, I can't tell you how bad it was on a scale of one to Earth-is-doomed."

Jake sat down awkwardly on my bean bag chair. "Sorry. I know that as your cousin, this is none of my business."

"Yeah, but as our leader," Jake winced at the title, but I ignored him, "it's kind of important to you if our entire group dissolves." I hugged one of my throw pillows to my chest. "I messed everything up pretty badly. The least I could have done was break up with Tobias before fucking Marco."

Jake jolted upright and almost fell off the bean bag. "Wait, you and Marco-that's what Tobias saw?"

I groaned. Apparently that had been one of the details Marco had decided to leave out. "Please don't lecture me. I know I deserve it, but just give me until tomorrow."

The bean bag chair creaked loudly as Jake tried to settle back in casually. "I can do that."

"Thanks." Neither of us said anything for a moment, and in the quiet I could hear the laugh track from a sitcom my sister Jordan must have been watching in her bedroom at top volume. She's always doing that, even late at night. "Jake. Tell me something. Do you think we can win this war?"

I mostly expected him to give me some bullshit response, something about how it didn't matter because we had to keep fighting anyway. Which would have been true, but wouldn't answer the question.

But Jake surprised me. "I used to," he said. "I used to think if we just held them off until the Andalites got here, then maybe we could do it. We've done a good job for a long time now, but the Yeerks are getting impatient. They're getting tired of trying to be sneaky. It's only a matter of time before they decide to risk the casualties and go to an all out war. And then there's not much we will be able to do with only six of us against an entire empire."

I had known it for a while, but it was sobering to hear Jake's confirmation. He saw it too. The Yeerks were getting stronger, bolder. They were enslaving entire elementary schools-maybe Marco and I had stopped them at one school, for one moment, but it wasn't going to last.

We were going to lose. We had always been destined to lose. There simply were not enough of us. After all this time, I had finally decided that I wanted to not just win the war, but survive it, and it was going to be too late.

"I was afraid you might say that," I admitted, staring up at my ceiling. I couldn't look at Jake or I would start crying again, which was frustrating because I thought I had gotten all of that out of my system back at the field after Tobias had left. "It seems so stupid to go through all of this just for us all to die in a few months anyway."

Jake shrugged. "I don't know. I guess that depends on why you're doing it. Are you just fucking Marco, or-"

"No," I snapped, a little too loudly. "I'm not."

Jake nodded, and I swear he looked the tiniest bit smug. "I didn't think so. So maybe it will be worth it? I keep going over this whole situation and trying to figure out how things are going to change, and what kind of effect it's going to have on everyone. Maybe you and Marco break up in a month, and then everybody will hate each other even more-"

"Gee, thanks."

"Or maybe the two of you will be good for each other and stop being such ruthless freaks."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better or worse?" I asked.

Jake ignored me and continued on: "Maybe Tobias will handle all of this better than I'm giving him credit for. Or maybe he won't, and we'll end up being a person short the next time the Yeerks come out to play. I don't know, Rachel. This isn't the kind of thing that I'm good at."

"Me either. Obviously."

Jake snorted. "Yeah, you got that part right."

We settled back into silence for a moment before I asked, "Jake, what are you doing here? I know you didn't come over tonight just to ask me about who I am currently dating."

"Oh, right." Jake sighed. "I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. I shouldn't have given up on the elementary school so easily."

"I shouldn't have gone behind your back."

"No. But I didn't give you much of a choice. Obviously it was possible to destroy the elementary school and save Sara, but I wasn't willing to think big enough. Maybe if the rest of us had been there, those other people wouldn't have died. I made a mistake, too. I know what you've probably been thinking, but I need you to know something. You might have gone behind our backs, but you did what you had to because you love your sister. You're not David."

I wasn't sure if Jake fully believed what he was saying, but we both knew it was what I needed to hear.

"Thanks, Jake."

Jake glanced up towards my window, and I knew without looking that Marco had just arrived. He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees and looking as serious as it was possible to look while seated on a beanbag. "You know that the Yeerks are going to retaliate soon. We are going to need everyone together-including you, Marco, and Tobias. I know the situation isn't great, so please promise me that you and Marco will do everything you can to make that possible."

"Jake, the last thing I want to do is cause Tobias any more pain than I already have."

"I know, I know," Jake ran his hands through his hair. "Just please try to be subtle. I know it's not exactly a strong suit for either of you-"

Marco hopped through the window, and I couldn't help but wonder what my mom or sisters would think if they happened to barge into my room at nine o'clock at night and find me with Cousin Jake and a great horned owl.

(I can be subtle,) Marco said. (What are we being subtle about?)

Jake looked at me pointedly and started morphing.

(Is it ok if I stay for a little bit?) Marco asked me in private thought speak. I gave a quick nod.

(Maybe close your curtains this time,) Jake suggested as he flew off into the night. Marco winced as he was demorphing.

Marco sat next to me on my bed, close enough that we were touching, but we were both a little awkward. "So….Tobias?" He asked me. "Did he...are you guys…?"

"It's over," I said, and Marco nodded but still looked cautious. "Obviously. But I want you to know, I was always going to tell him. Even if he hadn't seen us."

Marco raised his eyebrows.

"Ok, maybe I wasn't going to tell him everything, but you know what I mean. This thing...us...it's not my default choice. It's not just because we got caught." I slid my hand into Marco's, realizing that this was actually the first time we had done this. It felt surprisingly intimate, given that we had already had sex.

Marco squeezed my hand. "This is kind of crazy, isn't it? We can't let our families or anyone from school know. And we can't even act like we're together around our friends."

"I mean, I've been dating a guy that lives as a bird for three years. Secret dating doesn't seem that weird to me. But are you regretting things?"

"No!" Marco shook his head vehemently. "I don't regret anything-not the time travel, or you getting me suspended from school, or us committing multiple felonies and possibly an act of terrorism to destroy that elementary school. But if I'm being completely honest, about 5 years ago I made a bet with this guy from school that one day you would be my girlfriend, and I'm a little bit disappointed that I am not going to be able to collect on that."

"Oh shut up." I laughed despite myself and pushed Marco back onto my bed so that we could lay down together.

"I didn't think this would ever actually happen," he admitted.

"Which part?"

"Well, I always knew that you would one day be seduced by my quick wit and spectacular body."

I rolled my eyes pointedly, but couldn't stop myself from smiling a little. I moved closer to Marco, pressing my entire body against his. Marco turned towards me, wrapping his arms around me and burying his face into my hair.

"I never thought that you would choose me," he admitted, his words slightly muffled by my hair. "I wanted you to, but even after Tobias saw us earlier today, I thought you might still try and fix things with him."

"I chose you last night," I said. "Before you said anything to me at the fire, before we had sex, before Tobias saw us...I knew as soon as I saw you in the school. I tried to tell myself that we couldn't do anything, and that things would have to stay the same for us to stay in the war, but I knew last night."

Marco pulled away from me enough so that he could look me in the eyes. "What are you saying, Rachel?"

"I'm saying that I love you. Dumbass."

If anyone is actually still reading this after my four year gap, I am extremely sorry to have done this! I swear this is it this time: this is my final push to the end. I have three more chapters planned and partially written, and then this story will FINALLY be complete. Is there a record for fanfiction with longest time frame from start to completion? I started this in 2003. My deadline for myself is that I absolutely have to have it finished by May. Again, if anyone is still reading this after all of this time, thank you! Please let me know that you are here.