When she woke up from her latest bout of nightmares, ones that had involved the Yeerk Pool and all the horrors that six out of the eight Animorphs had witnessed there, Rachel sat up and took some deep breaths to try to clear her head. It wasn't like she hadn't had those kinds of things before, and she was supposed to be the one that all of the others depended on to keep their resolve up.
Marco called her Xena, and all of the others thought she was fearless. Still, even thinking about going back into that dark, horrifying place, full of their enemies and the horrors they had invented, Rachel pulled the covers up over her head and shivered. She didn't want to go back, more than anything, she didn't want that.
Still, this wasn't about what she wanted, this was about what they all needed to do if they were going to be able to hurt the Yeerks.
She must have managed to get some sleep after she'd been awakened by her nightmares, because the next thing she knew it was dawn. Pulling on the robe she kept by her bed for just these kinds of circumstances, Rachel went over to her window and opened it. Just the same way she'd been doing ever since the Animorphs' war against the Yeerks had begun in earnest.
Tobias fluttered down to land on the window, the way he usually did, but she was a bit more pleased to see him than she usually was.
(How you doing?) were the first words that he said to her.
"Fine," she said, making sure to whisper; her sisters were in the room right next to her, and her mom right across the hall. "How about you?"
(I had a good breakfast,) he said, sounding pleased. (A lucky hunt.)
Making her way over to her desk, wanting to have something actually normal to do before she dragged herself back down into the Yeerk Pool to face all of its horrors, she turned to look back over her shoulder at Tobias.
"Can you stand math?" she asked, not wanting him to be bored or anything while she was working, but not wanting to presume, either.
(It's gotten so that I actually kind of like math,) Tobias admitted, sounding a bit amused by the fact. (It's something that all humans have in common, no matter where or who they are.)
Opening her book as Tobias fluttered over to land on her desk, Rachel smiled softly. She knew that it might have seemed weird to someone else: her, sitting there with a red-tailed hawk perched on her shoulder as she tried work on math problems. Still, even something this strange to see was starting to feel normal; starting to be comforting, which was really what was important in this case.
It was something the two of them did every morning, provided that Tobias managed to get an early breakfast and that it wasn't raining.
(You worried about going back to the Yeerk Pool?)
She laughed softly, trying to appear nonchalant. "If I'm ever not worried about going down there, you can lock me up with Mr. Edelman."
(Yeah. Look, I'm going to be going in with you guys, this time. Not to mention Slade and Shara. So, what kind of morph do you think we'll be likely to use, so I can pass it on to them?)
"You don't have to come back down there, Tobias," she said, knowing that he'd had a worse time of it than any of them; he'd gotten trapped in morph down there, after all.
(Yes, I do,) he said firmly. (Just tell me what morph.)
"I don't know. Probably fly or cockroach. Do you have an entrance we can use?"
It was something that Tobias spent the large amount of free time that he'd found himself with after he'd been trapped: he mapped entrances to the Yeerk Pool by observing the movements of known Controllers in an effort to map the ever-shifting entrances to the Yeerk Pool
(Yeah, I have one,) he said, sounding amused all over again. (You guys are going to love this one.)
"If it leads to the Yeerk Pool, I don't think I could ever love it," she said, giving the hawk a sidelong look.
(Well, I didn't mean it like that,) Tobias said, cocking his head slightly, something that made him look both more and less birdlike at once. (It's just, this is pretty funny.)
"I'm sure it is," she said flatly, not particularly wanting to get into that kind of a discussion, but not wanting to hurt Tobias' feelings, either.
He'd probably worked hard to find whatever entrance he had found, and even though she pretty much hated the idea of going back down into that hellish place again, she wasn't going to diminish the work he'd done. She'd just have to deal with her misgivings, the way she always did. The others would be counting on her, just the same as they always did.
She and Tobias talked about little things for awhile after that, nothing particularly important, but things that helped them to stay grounded all the same; things that some people would have taken for granted, but none of the Animorphs could afford to anymore.
Sooner than she would have liked, though, the time came for Tobias to leave, so that she wouldn't end up having to explain to her mother or sisters just what a bird of prey was doing in her room. Saying her goodbyes, quieter than usual since her mother and sisters were more than likely going to be awake at this point, Rachel finished the homework she'd been doing while she and Tobias had been talking. And then, it was time to start the "normal" part of her day.