Guys, guess what!? I finished writing this thing! Yay! Okay, so, this story took a far different ending than what I had intended. So you can ignore whatever implications I had said in the last chapter.
I actually had to split this chapter in two because it was way too long. I'll be posting it soon though. Sometime over the weekend. Enjoy!
Many thanks to Quillian who is the main reason I got the motivation to finish writing this.
The months following his arrival were definitely better than those first few months he spent in California after Rachel's death. Still, they weren't idyllic. He still woke up screaming more often than not (he supposed that would never change) and he would still sometimes morph human to cry some days. He would still sometimes curse the day he was born, and sometimes he would do nothing but stay in his branch and mope all day without eating. But he thought that was just depression playing its part.
Overall, the good days, no, the okay days, outweighed the bad. Besides, at least here he wasn't totally alone and if reporters did come into the woods, it wasn't to look for him. Here, for the most part, he didn't feel the overwhelming weight of despair over Rachel's death. Or at least, the load wasn't as heavy. He didn't think about death as often and he hadn't attempting against his life since that day after his meeting with Jake.
The thing that did bother him more here than at California, though, was boredom. He thought that this was because a lot of his old bottled up emotions were dissipating, and without him dwelling so much on them now, he had a lot more time on his hands (talons) than he did before. And, while he was extremely fond of the hork-bajir, he was only willing to socialize with them to a certain extent.
It was around the time when his boredom was becoming overwhelming that Toby suggested he go back to school.
((That's ridiculous,)) he answered without a second thought.
"It was just a suggestion," Toby replied hotly. "Besides, is that not what normal human teenagers do?"
((Well, yes, but I don't think I can be described as a "normal human teenager". Or a human, honestly. Besides, I dropped out of school in the middle of eighth grade. Right now, I belong in the second semester of senior year. Twelfth grade,)) he amended at her confusion.
"Ah," she said, still seemingly confused at the American schooling system. Who wasn't, really? She raised her arm and raked her elbow blades down a tree trunk to scrape off some bark. "Well, can't you go back and finish the eighth grade?"
((I am not going back to school,)) Tobias said flatly. ((Especially not with a bunch of middle school pre-teens.))
"Okay!" Toby exclaimed. "But is there not a way to make up your lost time at school?"
Tobias shifted his weight to his left talon, leaning against the tree while contemplating this. ((Well... yeah. I suppose there is. But why would I want to do that?))
Toby gave him a look. For most people, it would be hard to identify a hork-bajir's "look" but Tobias had experience. "Surely you do not wish to spend the rest of your life as a hawk."
((And what's wrong with that?)) Tobias asked, a challenging tone in his voice.
"Many things. But mostly importantly, hawks do not have long life spans. And I am no expert, but I highly doubt that your hawk body has many years of life left."
It was true. The average lifespan of a hawk was about eighteen years. According to Cassie, when he first got his morph, the hawk was about nine years old. It had been five years since he acquired his morph, which meant he had about four years left. Four years was a long time to figure out what he wanted to do with his life.
((I suppose I could always... you know... live out the rest of the hawk's life and then trap myself as a human.)) That last part sounded more like a question than a statement. He wasn't sure if he wanted to do that. Maybe he'd end up doing a frolis maneuver with his andalite morph and trap himself as an andalite. Then he'd stay with Ax in the andalite homeworld for good and learn all about his alien heritage.
He was putting too much faith in something that might not even happen, he thought. So, to compensate, he told himself Maybe I won't trap myself as anything and I'll just die in four years instead. He mentally winced at how morbid that sounded.
"And what would you do afterwards?"
((... Go to college?)) And that would require a high school diploma. Well, crap. He wasn't used to having long-term goals. During the war, his main goal was to make sure he and his friends stayed alive.
Neither of them spoke for a bit. Tobias watched as Toby ate who glanced up at him almost expectantly a few times. Tobias sighed. ((Fine. You win this round. I guess I can work on my GED while I wait for Ax.)) Again with the hoping too much, he thought while he preened his feathers.
He mentally smacked himself. It wasn't that he didn't trust Ax to keep his promise. But it had been over half a year since he had heard from Ax. And too many times before his hopes had been shattered. Plus, he wasn't sure if the andalites would want him anyway.
Toby looked smug. As much as a hork-bajir could look smug, anyway. "It is fortunate that the meadow I picked out for you is closer to human civilization than to our colony, then."
Tobias suddenly looked up from preening. Wait. She had told him that it was because the hork-bajir tended to scare his pray away. ((You did that on purpose, you little brat!))
Toby just laughed.
...
Thankfully, the library had high school textbooks, but he wasn't allowed to check them out. He supposed he should probably find a study course online to help him prepare for a GED test but for now he was just content to flip through the books.
Besides, even though he had told Toby he would finish his education, he wasn't sure if he was going to follow through. After all he had been through, he couldn't picture himself in an ordinary college setting. But he figured that even if he never actually got his GED, going through high school books couldn't hurt. At the very least, it gave him something to do.
He started off with freshmen material first: English I, Biology, Algebra I, and World Geography. He began flipping through the Biology book first. Despite the fact that he hadn't attended school in four years, a lot of the material in the book looked familiar. This was because, for one, he lived with Ax who would very often lecture him about the inconsistencies he would find in his friends' textbooks. Also, Tobias would sometimes help his fellow teammates with their homework. Mainly Rachel, but he could remember various times when he helped his other friends as well.
A couple of times he had even flown over the school the day after a rough mission when he knew his friends had a test. Then, by peeping through the window, he would scan their tests over and tell them the answers to some questions. Some he knew. Others he would get by looking at other students' answers and then relaying them to his friends. It was cheating, obviously, but no one ever berated him for doing so. Not even Jake.
While skimming through a page about human genes, he was reminded of a particular time he had helped one of his teammates with his school work.
Tobias soared above the suburban houses' rooftops on his way to his final destination: Jake's house. He had already stopped by at everybody else's home and he had confirmed that they were indeed alive. He knew that it was pathetic to be so freaked out by a simple nightmare, but this one had been different. More realistic. And even though he knew that it had just been a dream, he had to make sure that all his friends were safe.
The night's wind blew through his feathers as his target came into sight. Jake was definitely asleep and snoring lightly. The only problem was that he appeared to have fallen asleep while doing homework. His head was on the desk, his desk lamp was on, and there were papers scattered all around him.
Tobias instantly felt bad for his friend, knowing that on top of all the stress he already had from being their leader, he still had to go home and worry about daily nuisances like homework. Tobias morphed his human self, grabbed a pencil and a packet with a Punnett square on the first sheet, plopped down on Jake's bed, and began to work.
About half an hour later he heard his friend begin to wake up, but he didn't look up. "Tobias?" Jake asked groggily. "What are you doing here?"
Instead of answering, Tobias looked up at him and asked, "It's the male that gives the offspring its sex, right?"
Jake looked at him, slightly confused. "What are you talking about?"
"Nevermind. Yes, he does. XY and all," he said, and turned his gaze back at the worksheet, bubbling in the correct answer. Suddenly, he felt the mattress go down as Jake sat next to him.
"Why are you doing my biology homework?"
Tobias' pencil stopped moving. "I can stop if you want me to."
"No, no. Continue," Jake said quickly and Tobias snickered. "Just... Thank you."
Tobias smiled at him. "Just don't tell Marco, or he'll make me do his."
Tobias angrily shut the book and opened the algebra textbook instead. After fifteen minutes of flipping through pages all he could really remember was something about slope and intercepts. His sour mood didn't let him concentrate, but he still stubbornly continued to skim through the other books.
It was half an hour before his morphing time was up that he felt like he was being watched. He instantly snapped his head up to see a familiar face sitting a few tables away from him. She had a thoughtful expression on her face while she examined him, like if she was trying to figure out who he was, but when she finally caught a clear look at his face, her eyes widened in recognition.
Shit, he thought, and immediately closed the book he was studying and stood up, ready to leave. "No, wait!" the woman screamed as he turned his back to her to face the exit door, earning herself angry stares and various "shh"s and a warning look from the librarian. "Sorry," she said, softer this time. "I just..." She didn't finish her sentence and instead hurried after Tobias, who was rapidly exiting the building.
Tobias made it out of the building before the woman, of course. And he knew that, if he started running now, he could quickly lose her and then demorph behind an alley. But he didn't. Something about the tone of her voice got to him. She seemed desperate. Distressed. And so, knowing full well that he would probably regret his decision later on, he stopped running and waited for her next to the entrance.
A few seconds later the doors were thrown open violently, almost hitting Tobias in the face. The woman started apologizing distractedly, until she realized who he was and that he hadn't ran away like she thought he would.
"Tobias!" she yelled. "It is you! I thought-" She stopped mid-sentence at Tobias' panicked expression. He put a finger to his lips, signaling her to be quiet. Then, in a softer voice, she said, "I need to speak to you."
After looking around to make sure nobody had heard her, he said, "I think we should go somewhere else to talk, Naomi."
...
Naomi led him to a nearly-empty coffee shop a few blocks away from the library. Still, to make sure they weren't heard, they sat down in the booth furthest away from the counter where the cashier was.
"I come here a lot when I come to visit the Colony," Naomi explained. "It's usually empty, so I can get work done here." Naomi was the head lawyer who represented the Hork-bajir Colony at court.
Tobias, nodded, and then he quickly excused himself to the restroom for a quick remorph. Once in the restroom, he considered just leaving through the window without telling Naomi. After all, what was he supposed to say to his dead girlfriend's mother? As his nerve left him, he managed to hop onto the windowsill to take off. Then he stopped.
Is this what Rachel would have wanted him to do?
"You can't always fly away from your problems, Tobias," she had told him once.
"Sure, I can," he had responded.
Then, exasperated, she had said, "Yes. But is that really how you want to spend the rest of your life? Running away?"
Yes, he mentally answered bitterly. But he knew it wasn't true. And so, with a sigh, he glided down into the stall again to morph human. Then, he nervously made his way back to their booth, fidgeting the entire way.
Naomi seemed to be muttering something to herself, and when she looked up, he seemed surprised to see him there. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "I thought you had left. You took a while."
"There was an employee in the restroom. I had to wait until he left," he lied, and sat down in front of her, trying not to look visibly uncomfortable.
She didn't say anything, opting to take a sip from the cappuccino she had ordered while he was in the restroom. They didn't say anything for a few minutes, and Tobias thought the silence would drive him crazy.
"So, I'm assuming you live with the hork-bajir now," Naomi said at last.
"Yes."
"They never mentioned you."
"I asked them not to," he answered. "And I would ask if you could do the same."
"Of course," she said, and the silence fell upon them again. Naomi looked like she wanted to leave. Like if she regretted asking to talk to him in the first place.
Tobias thought it was odd to see her so uncomfortable. Back in the Valley, she had always been so head-strong, so outspoken, not afraid to speak her mind. Like mother, like daughter, he had thought. But now... He supposed that talking to your dead daughter's boyfriend would set anyone on edge.
"I don't know if anyone told you," she began slowly, "but I've been wanting to talk to you for a while."
This took him by surprise. He and Naomi had never had an actual conversation. This was mostly because he was usually busy, but also because she always seemed to look at him with disapproval, almost. Like if she didn't want him near her daughter. The only real interaction they had was at Rachel's funeral when she let him leave with Rachel's ashes.
"I always thought you didn't like me," he said bluntly.
She smiled. "To be fair, I didn't like any of you kids, then," she said. "But if I'm being honest..." She sighed. "I guess in a way, I was jealous."
"Jealous," he repeated, bewildered. And then, without thinking, he said, "Jealous of the kid trapped in a bird's body with the amnesic mother who was caught in an intergalactic war?"
She laughed a bit. "I know it seems silly to you. It seems stupid to me now, as well. But... You and Rachel were so close. Anybody could see that. And it was weird because it seemed like she wasn't friends with anybody, then. Not even Cassie. Which is why I wanted you to tell me more about my daughter. They were always fighting. And when she was mad or upset or something, she would go to you and you were able to calm her down somehow. Me on the other hand..." She slumped back in her seat. "I would do the exact opposite. I was the one who would always upset her. We were always arguing. Always at each other's throats. My gosh, if I would have known..." For a second, it looked like she was going to start crying, but she quickly composed herself.
"But you didn't know," Tobias said. "None of us did." Except Jake.
"You can't change the past, I suppose," she said, a little sadly.
After a few minutes of contemplating what to say to make Naomi feel better, Tobias said, "I know that she didn't show it, but she really did love you. Everything she did during the war, every battle she ever fought, was for you. For her family. For her friends. And I know she wasn't the nicest daughter towards the end. And I know that she probably hurt you. But she was just scared. The war was escalating, and the world she knew was crumbling around her. And she was scared. And when Rachel is, was, scared, when there was something she couldn't control, she would get mad. She would lash out. And, well, she was never the best at handling her anger." Naomi laughed a little at this. "But honestly... she was just trying to protect you guys. All of us. And like I said, she really did care. She told me so quite often. Which is... why she sacrificed herself at the end, I guess."
By the end of his little speech, Naomi had tears in her eyes, though she refused to let them fall. She gave a small laugh. "You know, now I can see why she loved you so much."
...
It was a few weeks after his meeting with Naomi. They had spent about four hours in that cafe, all the while talking about Rachel. Naomi seemed relieved, at the end of their talk, knowing that her daughter wasn't the violent beast people made her out to be. Or at least, that there was a lot more to her than just her viciousness. They had both come so close to crying during that time, but none of them did. Or at least Tobias didn't until he was back in his territory where he was sure no one would see him. Except, this time, he didn't feel consumed by grief. And when he ran out of tears, he actually felt relieved. He was healing, he realized. Slowly, but he was healing.
That night was actually kind of warm, for a change, considering that it was still winter in Wyoming. Yet, he was still having trouble falling asleep, and he mentally cursed himself for it. He should enjoy sleeping in the warm while it lasted.
It was when he was finally managing to doze off that he heard the chaos. There was a screech, distinguishably hork-bajir. Instantly, he snapped his eyes open, wide awake. It was when he heard the gunshots that he hopped on the ground and began to morph, anger fueling his adrenaline.
Before he realized what he was morphing, he was almost a fully-grown polar bear. He recoiled in disgust and almost began to demorph, but there was another hork-bajir scream and he took off running towards the commotion. There was no time for grief.
Polar bear eyes didn't have great eyesight, but the night sky was bright enough that he could clearly make out the scene in front of him. There were three men, all with handheld pistols. They were all pointing their guns at the hork-bajir sprawled on the floor, a hork-bajir child. The man closest to the hork-bajir was screaming something along the lines of "alien trash" and looking like he was about to shoot at any moment.
Tobias didn't waste a second. With an ear-splitting roar, he pounced at them. Instantly, the attention was on him. "A polar bear!?" one of them screamed. Tobias replied with another roar.
The guys furthest to the kid didn't stay to see what would happen next. They instantly fled, screaming the entire time, forgetting that they had weapons. Not that they would have been of much help.
The third guy was stupider, choosing to shoot at Tobias instead of running. However, he didn't get many bullets into him before Tobias had grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and lifted him into the air, swatting the pistol aside. He brought the man up to eye-level, and then roared in his face, causing the guy to erupt in a fit of whimpers.
Tobias was briefly reminded of a time when Cassie had done something similar, but he brushed the memory aside.
((Don't come back again,)) he growled at the man who began nodding his head violently.
"I won't. I won't. Please don't kill me," the man begged. Tobias dropped the guy, and he instantly picked himself up and ran away.
Tobias turned to the hork-bajir, who was a few yards away, staring up at him with a fearful expression. Tobias took a step towards him, and the kid began to whimper.
((Hey, it's okay,)) he said soothingly. ((It's me, Tobias. I'm not going to hurt you.))
"Hero Tobias?" the hork-bajir asked shyly.
Tobias laughed a bit, and said ((Yeah. That Tobias.))
...
"The Forgotten Ones: the book Jake Berenson wrote about his lost teammates Rachel Berenson and Tobias Avan. Buy your copy today!"
Tobias had seen that stupid sign the past few times he had been to the library, and he was sick of it. Sick of seeing everybody fawning over it. Sick of overhearing comments of it. Sick of hearing people say that now they knew the real story of Rachel and Tobias. They didn't. They didn't know him and he was sick of people acting like they did. He held so much disdain for the book that he considered not going to the library anymore.
But he was not going to allow Jake to ruin something else for him. Instead, he just ignored the bookstore section in the library and opted stick to remain as far away from it as possible in the academic section.
On a particular day, however, Tobias was drawn to the bookstore. He had just finished going over a chapter in a geometry book, and his brain was fried, so he chose to close his textbooks and go through the library's fiction section to find something to read for fun. Except that he didn't find anything satisfactory. Or at least, he knew that the book he wanted to read wasn't in the fiction section, unfortunately. And so, against his better judgement, Tobias found himself walking over to the bookstore, the entire time telling himself that there were just no good books to read in that part of the library.
He wouldn't even admit it to himself, but he was curious about what Jake had to say in his book. Probably that Rachel's life was a necessary sacrifice. Probably that the Auxiliaries were expendable and that the 17,000 yeerks deserved to die. Probably some crappy justifications to make himself feel better. Knowing Jake, he knew that none of that was accurate, but telling himself that it was was the only way to subdue the part of his brain that was disgusted with him even considering touching Jake's book, let alone reading it.
There were multiple shelves displaying the book all over the bookstore, like if seeing the book in every corner of the store would encourage more people to buy it. He took a breath and quickly made his way over to the most secluded shelf he could find. He looked over his shoulder nervously as he took a book from the shelf with shaky hands, as if someone were about to scream, "Look! Tobias is reading Jake's book!" He glanced at the book for a full ten seconds before hastily opening it to a random page, knowing that his resolve would fade if he didn't act quickly.
The page he had landed on began mid-paragraph. He didn't turn the page, though. Tightening his grip on the book, he evened his breath, and began to read.
"Now, I knew that, technically, Tobias had been the one to volunteer for the mission. I never told him to. I never ordered him to potentially dig his own grave.
However, as we all huddled together in fly morph on that eagle, some of us crying mentally, some of us cursing silently, some of us doing both, all of us knowing full well that there was nothing we could do to help our agonizing friend, I knew that this was so much worse.
Tobias continued to scream. He continued to laugh maniacally. And, somehow, he continued to hide our secret through the whole ordeal.
Despite my pathetic justifications, tho-"
"Hey!" Tobias snapped his head up, startled, and almost dropped the book. A guy about his age was glaring at him, his badge indicating that he was an employee. "If you want to read the book, you have to pay for it first."
"Right," Tobias answered, still in a daze from what he had just read. He folded the page he was on and headed towards the front of the store where the cash register was with the book still in his hands. He fumbled to get money out of his pocket and quickly paid the cashier.
For the first time, the money hadn't been acquired by spotting change from the air. Since the war ended, the government had been consistently adding money in a bank account for each member in gratitude for their service during the war. Tobias had been reluctant to take out any money before, in fear of being found out. However, somehow, Marco had opened up another account for him under another name and had been transferring all his money to the new account, and then had Cassie relay all the necessary information to him. He hadn't asked him any questions, opting to just thank them instead.
Tobias left the bookstore and made his way to an empty table on the other side of the library. He opened the book to where he had left off, and continued to read.
"Despite my pathetic justifications, though, I knew that I had been the one to lead Tobias to his torture cell. I was the one who came up with the plan. I was the one who planted the idea of a capture, hoping, knowing, that he would be insightful enough to realize the entire plan. I was the one who manipulated him into volunteering, knowing full well that he would do whatever it took, no matter the consequences for himself, to keep us all safe.
The worst part, I think, was that we never knew whether the AMR originally worked or not. I prayed that it had. I prayed the trauma I had put Tobias through had not been in vain.
And do you want to know what he said to me afterwards? He said, "It was worth it. As long as it kept us safe, and it kept our identities a secret, it was all worth it."
The chapter ended there. Tobias put the book down and closed it with shaky hands. Jake had given him too much credit. Far too much. What he didn't know, what none of them knew, was that Tobias had given away their identities. Or at least, he had meant to. In the end, he had cracked and screamed that they were all just human kids in order to make Taylor end his pain. He didn't know if Taylor hadn't acknowledged this or if he had just been too weak to actually thought-speak then. But it didn't matter. In the end, Taylor had broken him.
Jake also hadn't stated the circumstances in which Tobias had said that it was all worth it. He didn't say how Ax had desperately come to him for help because Tobias had refused to sleep for two weeks, and the few times he did, he would wake up screaming and shouting in fear. Jake didn't say how he had dragged a reluctant Tobias into his empty house afterwards, ordering him to morph human in hopes that maybe he would be able to rest that way. He didn't write about how Tobias had only pretended to sleep, too afraid to wake him up with his tortured screams. Jake didn't say how he had woken up at 3a.m, fifty minutes before the second alarm to signal Tobias's morphing time was up. He didn't talk about how he had found Tobias curled up in his bed with a flashlight reading a book, The Outsiders, which had been assigned to all 10th graders. Jake didn't say how he had sighed exasperatedly and sat next to Tobias, telling his friend that he wouldn't sleep if he didn't. Then, when Tobias refused, he said that if neither of them were going to sleep, would Tobias kindly summarize the book because he had a test on it the next morning. Jake didn't say how he interrupted Tobias halfway through his explanation with an apology, promising never to send him into an obviously disastrous mission again. He didn't say how Tobias had given him an annoyed look and told him that of course he would because knowing when sacrifices had to be made was what being a leader entitled. He didn't say how it was then that Tobias had said that it was worth it no matter what, but how he had only said it to make them both feel better about what had happened. And he didn't say, he didn't know, how as he said it, Tobias was biting down his own resentment at Jake for being the one who quietly volunteered Tobias to be experimented on in the first place.
Tobias stared at the book, trying to summon up fury at Jake again. Instead, he was ambushed by an onslaught of memories.
He folded his arms on the table buried his face in them. He had only read a page and a half, and so many memories of his torture and the aftermath resurfaced. How Ax refused to let him out of his sight for an entire month. How he had slept next to Tobias' tree when Tobias refused to sleep in his scoop. The time Marco had somehow acquired alcohol and gathered Jake, Ax, and Tobias to drink, marking it as the first time multiple members of the group had gotten drunk together. He had called it "guy's night out", but it was an obvious attempt to cheer Tobias up. How Rachel didn't mention anything about him becoming a human nothlit for a while, and didn't even insist on them having normal teenage dates, opting instead to go flying with him. The two times Cassie cornered him, trying to talk to him about his time spent in the glass cube. How she would ask him to help her with her chores at the barn whenever she wouldn't see him for a few days to make sure he was okay. How they would all leave him out of small missions for a while, all of them taking over his surveillance at one point in an annoying, but somewhat touching attempt to keep him safe.
He looked up at the book wearily. Amazing how much a few sheet of papers could overwhelm him. However, he wasn't about to let this book make him fall apart. Tentatively, he picked it up, and opened the book to a random page again. This time, it landed earlier on in the book.
"It's stupid, I guess, but I always just assumed that Rachel was totally fearless before then. And while it is probably true that she was a bit more dauntless than the rest of us, that's not what made her brave.
It was her fear. It was the fact that, despite that she was almost as scared as the rest of us, she still fought harder than all of us. She still jumped, almost recklessly, into battle. She still hid her fear and put on a facade of an amazon warrior for us, in order to encourage us, to inspire us, not to give up.
As long as I knew her, Rachel had always wanted to be a gymnast, even ignoring the fact that, according to her, she was way too tall to ever succeed. Yet, here she was, throwing away a once in a lifetime opportunity to accomplish her dreams in order to fight a war that she didn't even want a part in."
Tobias closed the book abruptly, feeling bitterness settle within him. It wasn't like if what Jake had said wasn't true. It was quite accurate actually, at least in the beginning of the war before everyone became twenty shades darker.
It was the fact that Jake seemed to understand her so well. Almost as much as Tobias did. Almost more in a different way. And yet… He had still sent her away to die.
Tobias sighed, shoved the book in his backpack, stood up from the table, and made his way out of the library. His morphing time was almost up.