Chapter Text
My name is Cassie. And I fight aliens.
As I’m sure you can imagine, this creates a lot of problems and questions. Every time I was sure I’d wrapped my mind around some new information, yet more of it sprang out of nowhere, often trying to kill or enslave us. I’d pretty much accepted the concept of aliens existing in the first place (and trying to kill or enslave us), sort-of puzzled out the incredibly powerful spacetime-bending conservationist (who’d insisted that without his help the other aliens would manage to enslave us), and moved on to a puzzle that, according to our resident alien teammate, shouldn’t exist.
And that’s why my pocket was full of somewhat confused notes about Tobias when I was out checking the health of our horse. I’d brought them out to bury in my little box under the tree.
After showing up as a human to Rachel’s award ceremony, Tobias had taken us aside and told us what had happened in that distant, explaining-the-bare-minimum way of his. We’d all sort of assumed that the ellimist had come through on his promise. He hadn’t, except in the most roundabout possible way – he’d given Tobias his ‘humanity’ back in the sense that he’d taken him, a now morph-capable bird, a little way back in time to acquire his own DNA. Which sounded pretty cool, except for the part where he was still a bird. Oh, he could choose to be human again – he could focus on his human form and hold it for two hours, trapping himself a second time and knowing that the decision was permanent. He could trade in his usefulness as a soldier in this war for a pair of hands and a warm meal every night, if he truly wanted to be human that badly. His humanity was right there, well within reach, just on the other side of a life of shapeshifting and super-healing that happened to have a side order of living in the forest and eating rats.
The notes in my pocket had several choice things to say about the ellimist’s personality and brand of ‘help’.
But that was Tobias’ problem, and there wasn’t much we could do to help him. I had other problems of my own. Human problems.
“So, can we talk?” I asked Rachel, peering up from between Midnight's legs. The horse had managed to cut herself on a piece of fence wire. Not badly, but I had to monitor it and make sure it didn't get infected.
“About what? Tobias?”
“No,” I said. “About your dad.” About what I did. About why you're mad at me. And why you don’t want to tell anyone else, so you’re here pretending to hang out with me, pretending everything’s okay.
“Do we have to?” Rachel asked tightly.
“Well, we have to eventually.”
“No we don't.”
“Look, I get why you're mad at me. And you're right. But I don't know how to make this better. And I hate having you mad at me.”
“Do you think I want to be mad at you, Cassie? I hate feeling like I can't trust you. I hate feeling like you would do something like that to me. We've always... even before this alien thing, we were best friends. We had each other. And since this war started, I've needed you more than ever, and then you...” She shook her head. “No, I'm just going to pretend it never happened. That's my decision. I'm going to forget the whole thing.”
“We can't just ignore it.”
“Why not? Like you said, we can't fix it. There's no way to make it better. My dad's out of town; he's not in danger. I can't tell him who I am, so it's not like him knowing about the war is information I can use. And I believe – I choose to believe – that if he was in danger, you'd tell me. So, yeah. Forgive and forget. Move on. That seems the best thing to do.” She crouched down next to me – not getting any dirt on her jeans as she did so, I noticed. “How's the horse?”
I bit my lip. I knew it wasn’t as simple as just forgetting something like that had happened… as just forgetting that I’d done something like that. You couldn’t push the reset button on trust, or on feelings of betrayal. But I also knew that if Rachel was going to try, there wasn’t a thing in the world that I could do to stop her. Trying to force the issue into the spotlight would be like getting between her in grizzly bear morph and an intended target – dangerous, pointless, and causing a lot of unnecessary pain. She wanted to talk about the horse instead? Fine. I’d play along and let her sort it out. “The horse is fine. The cut's healing well.” I stood up and gave Midnight a quick pat. “Let me make a quick detour, then we should get back to the barn. I gotta feed the animals.”
Rachel watched silently as I dug up and buried my notes. Technically, I hadn’t told her I had a box of notes hidden out in the woods, but I hadn’t made a secret of my various forms of research either. She’d even helped me with some of it, as my only thoughtspeak-distance research subject apart from Jake who neither openly told me that what I was doing was pointless nor needed to be bribed with pie. She didn’t ask what was on the pages I added to the box, or comment as I heaped old leaves on top of the burial site and stomped them down.
“Right,” I said, dusting my hands on my jeans, “let’s get back.”
Rachel stared at my legs as we walked. “Cassie?”
“Hmm?”
“How long ago did you buy those jeans? When you were four?”
With my back to Rachel and my face safely hidden, I grinned. It was an old argument. A safe argument. Rachel couldn't stand the fact that my jeans ended an inch or so above my boots.
“Are you saying that these jeans are too short?” I asked.
“Not if you're expecting a flood. If you were expecting a flood, those would be the exact jeans to wear. They're so short you could wade across the Mississippi and not get them wet.”
“They're not that bad,” I grumbled.
“Let me take you to the mall,” she said, in the manner of one who'd made the same plea countless times over many years. “We can get you some new jeans. They don't have to be fancy ones. Maybe a nice belt, too.”
“Who's going to the mall?” my dad asked, not looking up from the little log book he was writing in. We'd reached the barn.
“Rachel is going to the mall,” I said.
“Make her go with me,” Rachel pleaded.
“Can't,” Dad laughed. “I need Cassie. Crazy Helen called and we have a sick horse way on the edge of the Dry Lands.”
“The Dry Lands?” I moaned. “Really?” The Dry Lands were out on the edge of town, and by 'out on the edge of town' I mean they made our farm bordering the forest look like the heart of Suburbia. It would take a good two hours to drive out there, and since the government didn't seem to care about animal health at all, that was somehow my dad's problem instead of the job of a more appropriately placed agency. Not that the drive bothered me as much as it would have before the whole Animorph thing. Routinely spending half a day hiking through the forest as a wolf had kind of put nice, quick car travel into perspective. I shot Rachel a sly look. “Oh, dear me. I guess I can't watch you power shop for three hours while guys drool all over you. How terrible. Life is so cruel.”
Rachel forced a laugh. “I guess a sick horse is more important than jeans that go all the way down. But there won't always be sick animals to save you.”
“Come with us,” I pleaded. I like spending time with my dad. But two hours with only my dad's awkward questions about school and the greatest hits of Stevie Wonder was a bit much. Especially since I was still far from certain that he was himself. He might have an alien in his brain.
“Yeah, right,” Rachel said.
“Come with us,” I repeated, “and I'll let you pick out a new pair of jeans for me tomorrow.”
That got her attention. Rachel's eyes locked onto me like she was a bald eagle and had just spotted a Dracon beam. “Real jeans? Not some pair of blue cardboard-looking jeans?” She looked thoughtful. “Of course, you'll need a nice top to go with them.”
If she wasn't my best friend who I was desperately trying to repair bridges with after pulling her father into an intergalactic war, I probably would have stood up for myself. Instead, like an idiot, I said nothing, and just climbed into the truck.
But that wasn't the most idiotic thing about the trip. I'd been worried that such a long journey with my possibly-Controller father would be awkward. A long journey between my possibly-Controller father and a violent-minded Animorph who was still kind of mad at me for putting hers at risk? SUPER awkward.
Turns out the greatest hits of Stevie Wonder is of limited use in defusing an awkward silence.
So I guess it's kind of fortunate that the whole situation was overshadowed by our discovery of the evil horses that threatened all of humanity.