The usual copyright BS. I don't own Animorphs and I ain't makin any money off this.

~The Last Ronin~

We didn't talk on the trip home. Thankfully Tobias realized I had a lot I needed to think about.

Once back at the house I told him I wanted to be alone for a while and went to lay down in one of the bedrooms. The sheets are musty and mouse-eaten but I don't care.

The excitement I'd gotten while shopping has been obliterated by the magnitude of what I'd remembered. I should have known, should have suspected. But thinking back over the past...has it only been a week?...I can't put my finger on anything that would have given it away.

I don't know how he's managed to keep quiet about this. And the pain he must be in seeing me like this! Knowing what he does. Knowing what we'd had...what we were going to be. I'm such a fool.

A few tears leak from my eyes and I wipe them away. I should leave. It's selfish of me to use him like this. At least until I get my memory back. Maybe if that happens he'll be able to forgive me. Maybe it'll make all this okay.

But I know I won't leave. That option vanished the moment he said my name a week ago. Of course, it may not have even been an option then. He hasn't lied to me once, so I know what he said earlier is true...that my memory is real.

From both his words and actions I'd understood that we'd been close. We had been dating...as best a girl and a boy who is a hawk could in the middle of a war. But to think we had been more than simply - simply! - girlfriend and boyfriend.

I turn over and look at the ceiling. This is too much to deal with right now. I feel like my head is going to explode...unless of course my heart gets there first. What had happened that night should have made me the happiest girl on the planet. And it had; five years ago - in another life. Now I'm just confused.

Confused because I can't figure out why I'm confused. I am the girl Tobias loves, even if I don't fully remember it. And I am the girl who loves him back. There's no denying it. The longer I spend with him and the more my memory returns the more true that one fact becomes.

Part of me is angry. I feel as if I never had a choice in the matter. And I'm angry at myself for being angry. I had had a choice. Eight years ago. Just because I don't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

But I feel cheated somehow. Surely we didn't just wake up one day loving each other. So much time lost to me...how did we go from barely knowing one another, as he told me was once true, to here? To the here where simply believing he might be in pain hurts me.

God, Tobias! That night on the beach he told me he was going to stay human once the war was over. He wanted to stay human so he could marry me.

I'd been ecstatic; higher than any battle had ever gotten me. The one huge fear I'd had about us had been put to rest with that single statement. There was a future for us.

I hadn't hesitated in accepting his proposal, once I'd recovered from the shock of course. Neither one of us had any idea how we were going to make it work - we were so young! - but we were going to try.

That night was the first we spent together. Two scared kids, so full of hope for the future. It had been awkward and embarrassing and utterly perfect. For a brief stretch of time the war had vanished. All that mattered was us: a boy and a girl in love.

A month later, the war was over.

I was dead. No future for us.

It's been over five years for him. For me it was a just over a week ago. A little over a week ago I'd had everything I thought I'd ever want within my grasp. Now...now I just feel as if I'm more lost than ever.

I turn over again and look out the window. Somewhere out there Tobias is watching, his recently re-assembled heart waiting for me. Waiting for me to either heal it or shatter it to the wind. It's a lot of pressure, to be responsible for someone else's heart.

There's really only one question left for me to answer. One question that will decide whether I save him or destroy him. A question I'd often wondered a long time ago. One which I'd once thought answered.

My own desire aside, is there a future for us?

It's an important question: one which needs more than a single night contemplating. But the longer it takes me to figure out the answer, the more afraid I am that the answer will be 'no'.