"I was hoping you'd come," she whispered as she slid up the window. "I'm having some trouble with my math homework."
//Nice to see you too, Rach,// I said, but the tone of my thought-speak let her know I was only joking.
"It's always nice to see you, Tobias, you know that," Rachel said. "But I really want to get this finished tonight. That way I won't have any homework over the holidays."
//Holidays?// I asked.
"It's Thanksgiving weekend, don't you remember?" Rachel asked.
As I perched on the back of her desk chair, I gave her the hawk equivalent of a shrug. //I don't really keep track of that kind of thing. It never meant much to me anyway.//
Rachel sat on the chair sideways, so she only had to turn her head a little to look me in the eyes. "What about before the Animorphs? What did you do for Thanksgiving then?"
//Depends on if I was at my Aunt's or my Uncle's.//
"Well…"
//If I was with my Aunt, she'd go out to dinner with her art-crowd friends, and leave me with some turkey sandwiches in front of the TV. That's what I liked best about living with my Aunt - she had almost every cable channel in existence.//
"And what about your Uncle?" Rachel asked gently.
//Basically, he'd celebrate by getting
drunk on Wild Turkey instead of beer. Either way, I'd still end up
in my room staying out of his way.// Rachel looked down at her lap, and
bit her lip, and I added, //Don't feel sorry for me Rachel, not now.
I'm happier as a hawk than I ever was as a human.// I paused for
a moment, studying
her. //But then, you've never really
accepted that, have you?//
Tobias' thought-speak was gentle and commanding at the same time, as he said, //Look at me, Rachel. Look me in the eyes.//
I licked my lips, and turned my head so I was looking into those fierce hawk eyes, that used to be gray and have an expression in them that was tender and hurt and hopeful all at once.
//Rachel, when the Ellimist and I made
our deal over the Hork-Bajir, you were mad because he hadn't made me human
again. But I could do that right now. We still have the Escafil device;
I could stay in human morph and we could just give me back my morphing
ability. I wouldn't have to leave the fight or anything. But
I haven't done
that. No one has even suggested
it.//
"I *know*, Tobias!"
I shut my mouth tightly. I had sounded as if I was in pain. Tobias took off from the chair and landed on my bed, where he began to morph. I watched as the feathers melted into smooth skin, which I've never really touched, not the way I want to. As the beak gave way to soft lips, which I've only kissed once. I don't think that Tobias has any idea how handsome he really is.
Maybe that's one of the things I like so
much about him. Maybe that's why he's the only guy who's ever been
interested in me for more than my looks. The other boys who have
flirted with me - like Bailey, who my berserker half wanted to kill, and
T.T. - have only been interested in the surface. Tobias knows me
better than anyone else in the world, even Cassie, and he… cares about
me, anyway. He likes the things about me that
send other guys running.
Then Tobias knelt in front of me, and wrapped
his hands around mine. "Rachel, I was two weeks past my thirteenth
birthday when we took that short-cut through the construction site.
I heard my father's letter to me on my fourteenth birthday. My aunt
and uncle didn't even notice I was gone until DeGroot called them to try
and
find me."
"If I did become human, what do you think would happen? Sooner or later, I'd end up shipped back to my aunt's place-which is on the opposite side of the country, in case you didn't know. Or maybe I'd end up in some huge foster home, where someone would be bound to find out about me - and The Sharing's been recruiting pretty heavily in those places. No one else has noticed, but I kind of… took an interest, you might say."
"When I'm eighteen and legally on my own, I'll see if I can put together enough of a life to pass as human. But until then…" Tobias shrugged. "As a hawk, I'm safe, I can take care of myself, and no one can take me away from here. As a boy I'm vulnerable. We found that out for sure over the whole mess with my so-called cousin Aria."
I felt sick at the memory. If Visser Three and DeGroot had suspected, even for a minute, that Tobias believed or knew anything about his real father, he would have been made into a Controller immediately. Then the rest of us would have fallen in short order.
Tobias put his hand against my cheek, and it took everything I had not to shiver at the sparks his touch sent through me. "Rachel, do I have anything to be human for?"
I knew what he meant… us. The two
of us together. If he was human all the time, we could be a real
couple, instead of this constant denial we lived in. The relationship
between us could be real, instead of something we danced around and never
discussed, except for how impossible it was. We could eat lunch together
at school; we could go to movies and out for pizza afterwards. We could
even go to see 'The Phantom Menace'
without Tobias having to go the bathroom
and demorph once!
But if he became human, he would eventually be taken away from me. He'd made that clear, and it was true. If he stayed a hawk, he'd always be with me. Always looking out for me. There really wasn't much of a decision, was there?
I took a deep breath, and covered his hand with my own. "I'd rather have you with me all the time as a hawk, than with me some of the time as a human."
Tobias smiled, and leaned his forehead against mine. We both closed our eyes, and stayed like that for several minutes. We breathed in the same rhythm, and I knew he understood what I couldn't make myself say.