After they had all managed to find the time to make their way into the Chapman house, or at least for Rachel to do that – Tommy still found himself wishing he could go along with her; all of the Animorphs were about three years younger than him, so he figured it was only natural that he wanted to protect them, even if it wasn't always possible – Tommy sighed.
"Are you ready?" Jake asked, and Tommy snapped his attention back to where Rachel was standing.
"Are you sure about this?" Tommy asked, after Rachel had given a short, sharp nod to Jake. "I don't think anyone would mind if you wanted to call this off."
"The sooner the better," Rachel said, the look on her face telling him that she wouldn't back down for anything. "We all know something is wrong in that house, and Melissa is still my friend. Maybe I can find some way to help her."
"Your job is not to help Melissa Chapman," Marco said, sounding about as sarcastic and impatient as Tommy had ever heard the kid sound. "You're supposed to be spying on Chapman. You're supposed to be finding some way for us to get at the Yeerks, so we can all turn into wild animals and get ourselves killed."
"That's not exactly what we're trying to do, Marco," he said, turning a slight glare on his friend and fellow Animorph; really, there were times that Marco's cynicism and pessimism could be really annoying.
"I know what we're trying to do, Marco," Rachel said, nearly before he'd finished speaking, himself.
"Okay, well take care of yourself," Marco said, nodding. "That is an assistant principal you're dealing with. He finds out you've turned into a cat and gone sneaking around his house, that'll be after-school detention for like a year."
Laughing along with his fellow Animorphs, Tommy found himself relaxing, just slightly though; he was still worried about Rachel and what she might end up facing when she was in that house. He couldn't forget the danger she was going to be facing, or how much he wanted to be the one going in her place. Still, Melissa was her friend, and he had to respect what Rachel wanted to do.
He'd want the same in return, if it'd been one of his friends in this kind of situation; at least the hypothetical ones outside of the Animorphs.
Once Rachel had decided that she was ready, she signaled for Tobias to land in a nearby tree; he told her where the cat she was going to be impersonating – was that even the right word for it? – was out, seemingly for the night, and Rachel seemed to finish the last of her mental preparations at that moment. As Rachel's face took on a look of concentration, the same kind that he'd seen on every one of his fellow Animorphs when they started morphing, Tommy tried to bury his wish to go with her.
Or in her place, considering how much she wanted to handle this task herself.
"Oh, that is so cool!" Cassie exclaimed, grinning as the black and white fur of a tuxedo-patterned cat grew in while Rachel was still mostly human. "That is way cool. You look great!"
"It's kind of weird, but also kind of pretty," Marco said, looking like he didn't quite know what to make of the form Rachel was currently in, even as she continued morphing into her friend's cat. "I'm thinking you could do commercials for cat food. Sing a little song, maybe dance a bit."
Tommy found himself laughing, before Marco could say the rest of what he was thinking. "That's not really what we're here for, Marco."
Once Rachel had finished morphing at last, she actually seemed happy to be a cat, somehow. It reminded him a lot of the lion he'd morphed into, back when he and the other Animorphs had gone down into the Yeerks' underground strong hold in an effort to rescue anyone they could. Still, that thought brought up the memory of just what had happened when they'd tried that.
What he hoped would never happen again.
Watching with the rest of the Animorphs as Rachel made her way into the Chapman house, Tommy folded his arms and tried to force himself to relax; tried not to think about what Rachel would be facing, when she went down into that place. Tried not to think about how young she really was, and how much he wished he could go in her place.
