After Rachel had come back out of the Chapman house, Tommy couldn't help the thought that she was hiding something. Once she'd demorphed into her human form, he noticed that there was a new kind of determination in her eyes.

"You only have ten minutes to spare, Rachel," Jake said, a stern look on his face as he stared down Rachel where she was standing. "I hope it was worth scaring us all half to death; did you at least discover something useful?"

"Yes, I discovered plenty," Rachel said, sounding almost like she was trying as hard as she could not to bite off the ends of her words as she spoke them. "I discovered that Chapman has a way to communicate directly with Visser Three. I discovered that Visser Three is pretty hot to catch us, although he still thinks we're Andalites. And I decided something, too."

"What's that, Rachel?" he asked, wanting to know just what had brought out this new resolve that he could see in her eyes.

"I've decided that I don't care what it takes, or how many risks I have to run," Rachel said, the look of resolve on her face deepening and growing stronger as she spoke. "I don't care what happens to me; I hate these Yeerks. I hate them. I hate them, and I will find a way to stop them."

"Yeah, I get that," he said, stepping over to clap her right shoulder.

The six of them went their separate ways after that, but Tommy made a mental note to look in on Rachel whenever he could. He knew that she'd found her resolve after going into the Chapman house to find out what the man was doing for Visser Three and the Yeerk forces in general, but it was starting to seem like she was forgetting how much danger they were all in. Besides that, he was the oldest Animorph, so it was only natural that he should protect the rest of them.