He watched as his fingers flexed and his
hands moved. But it wasn't him that was making them act. It
wasn't him that was drawing his Great-grandfather's Nazi dagger from behind
his back. It wasn't him wrapping his fingers around the handle as
his father talked about fishing with Grandpa G on the same dock they were
standing on right now.
It wasn't him who stabbed his father in the back, twisting and dragging the blade to make sure his father was dead.
It was the monster inside his head.
The man gasped as he awoke, covered in cold sweat. He looked wildly around his bedroom, seeing the things he'd chosen to decorate this most personal of spaces.
His college and medical school diplomas-he'd
been delivered from the monster's grasp just weeks before he started college.
Several of the sheaf of pictures he'd taken his first day of freedom.
His parents had laughed at him gently, but Jake had just smiled at him.
A smile like he'd never seen his little brother give before, as if Jake
knew exactly why this day was so special
and was sharing in his joy. Years later he learned that was true.
Tom Marin sighed as he climbed out of bed
and padded to the bathroom. He splashed some water on his face, and
stared into his reflection's eyes. He dreamed about his years as
a Controller several nights a week. He was so used to them that he
usually didn't even remember them when he woke up. But every so often
he'd get a really bad one, like tonight. It didn't matter that the
dream had never happened, that Jake and the other
Animorphs had prevented his father's murder.
That didn't make the dream any easier, because it so easily could have
become true.
Dreams like this were common among former Controllers; after discussing it with Hedrick Chapman and Eva Corelli, he'd found out that the higher rank of the Yeerk, the worse the nightmares were. After being freed, Eva had spent a year in full-time therapy before revealing to her husband that she was still alive. Tom shuddered as he contemplated what the former host for Visser One dreamed about.
He and Eva now specialized in counseling
former Controllers. It was easy to see where Marco got his sense
of humor as well as his looks; it had taken several days to talk Eva out
of calling their practice 'Controllers Anonymous'. As a psychologist,
he worked one-on-one with the worst traumatized, while Eva ran the group
sessions. During a break today, Eva had mentioned that ex-Controllers
weren't the only ones who had bad
dreams; Marco had told her that all the
Animorphs did too, although theirs had decreased at a much faster rate
than the ex-Controllers' had.
Tom had talked to Jake and Cassie about
it when they'd met for dinner earlier that night. According to Jake,
his and Cassie's nightmares were practically non-existent these days, only
coming back after a traumatic experience. Then Cassie had added,
"But then, all of our experiences were pretty typical for the Animorphs
- or at least as typical as experiences
get when you're saving the world." She'd grinned, before sobering and continuing,
"A couple of us seemed to specialize in unusual horrors."
Tom had held himself back from asking what Cassie - who thought that 'typical', was performing brain surgery on an alien at 14 - considered 'unusual horrors'. But now, he couldn't help but wonder what the 'couple of us' dreamed of.
*
The man gasped as he awoke, trembling as
the nightmare loosed its' last bonds on him. The images were still
fresh. The agony that felt as if it were ripping him apart as he
screamed in thought-speak, greater than any pain he had ever known.
Of the days and nights of insanity, not knowing whether he was human or
animal. Of
diving deeper and deeper into still water
after the Pemalite ship, part of his mind reeling from the suppressed terror
of being surrounded by an unnatural environment.
As he always did when coming out of the
nightmares, he rolled over and reached out for the center of his universe.
The one he'd screamed for as his body was tortured, and had been in the
memories he'd escaped to. The one who had brought him back from the
edge of madness, and had helped him stay back. The one
who he had followed into the depths of
the ocean, because she was scared too and he wasn't going to let her do
this alone. The one who had understood his dual personality more
truly than any other, because she experienced it herself.
The one who burned so brightly in his embrace that he could not comprehend-let alone notice-that anything but her existed. The one whose love for him scorched away all the shadows in his soul, making them disappear into smoke.
Tobias felt his mate stir, as he slid his arms around her. As he buried his face in her neck, tasting her skin, she murmured his name.
*
Rachel came awake as soon as she felt Tobias' arms around her. As she pushed through the last wisps of sleep, she felt a light, wet pressure trace along her jugular vein. The feeling of his tongue on her skin sent a jolt of desire-induced adrenaline through her body, making her heart leap, then settle into a pounding beat.
She murmured his name, before Tobias rolled them so she was on her back and he lay atop her, his face in her neck. He was trembling in fear and need, and Rachel wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his thighs, hugging him with her whole body. She recognized the signs of a flashback nightmare, and what he was silently asking from her. Recognized the signs from her own horrible dreams.
From dreaming of her growing fear of her own dark side, as she cold-bloodedly decided to murder another human in revenge for his killing of Tobias-or at least she and David had both thought so. Of morphing out involuntarily in the crushing pressure of the ocean depths, each human part of her being squished as it appeared. Of the Drode's offer in the Pemalite ship, and what 'salvation in the arms of Crayak' would have been like. Of being split into two - literally - and feeling the terror of the whimpering coward, as she was faced with the rage of the berserker warrior.
When she woke from those nightmares, she always reached for her husband, and he always gave her everything his love provided. His assurance that she had not become the monster that Crayak believed she could be, his protection against anything that tried to hurt her, and most of all his love. All-knowing, all-accepting and all-encompassing.
*
As the aftershocks of Tobias' fear decreased, his need grew. Rachel understood as she always did, as he did when it was her turn to wake up shivering. The desperation in one of them to be comforted was always matched by the hunger of the other to give comfort. Rachel tipped up his face to slant her mouth over his, and they kissed deeply. Rachel whispered, "Give it to me, Tobias. Take all your terror and your guilt and your pain, and give it to me." Tobias moaned and shifted them so he could easily reach the buttons of her silk nightshirt.
Their nightclothes were quickly dispensed with, and then it was just the two of them, skin to skin, heart to heart. Everything else forgotten in what they made together. All the night chills incinerated by the burning maelstrom they created and the cataclysm of pleasure that took them both.
*
As he closed his eyes and started to fall asleep, Tobias wondered, //What did I ever do to deserve her?//
*
As Rachel laid her head on her husband's chest, she heard the beat of his heart, and thought, //What did I ever do to deserve him?//
*
//Tell me, please…//
*
//So I can do it all over again…//
*
//And again…//
*
//And again…//