Work Text:
Tobias and Rachel were sitting on her bed, both human, one dressed in a strange assortment of fitted exercise clothes and the other in a fluffy bathrobe, legs crossed and knees bumping together, eating the last of the little cake Rachel had gotten her hands on and talking in whispers.
<Won’t your mom get mad?> Tobias had asked hesitantly, when Rachel patted her bed and invited him to morph so that they could share the cake. <If she walks in and finds you hanging out with a strange guy in the middle of the night?>
Rachel had shrugged, as irreverent as ever, and said, “My door locks.”
So here they were. After the last of the cake was eaten, Rachel cocked her head at Tobias and gave him a smile—somewhat sad.
“So,” she said quietly. “Do you want to talk about it? About the meeting?”
Tobias took a deep breath and held it, then let it out slowly. “I.” He swallowed the rest of the sentence and lowered his head to one hand. Rachel’s fingers came to rest on his shoulder, light and soothing, then slid down to his back. “I don’t know how to.” Tobias made a frustrated gesture, hoping to convey how the fuck do I say this out loud. He had to tell her. Would have to tell the others, probably tomorrow. Soon. Before this could be used against them. Had to tell Ax. But he couldn’t get the words to line up on his tongue, couldn’t force his throat to work around them.
“Well,” Rachel said with her usual direct pragmatism, “you better just say it however you can. And then we can deal with it.”
One corner of his lips quirked at that—a very Rachel answer—and he caught a glimpse of a triumphant grin before she wiped it away, trying to appear serious. Rachel loved to see him smile, and he tried to remember it, tried to let a real smile break over his human face every once in a while to see her eyes dance. He hadn’t been much good at it even when he was a full-time resident.
“Okay,” Tobias breathed, and raised his head, leaning back against the wall and pressing both hands over his eyes so that he didn’t have to watch the fallout of what he was about to say. “Okay. So. The letter. They read the letter to me.” Rachel’s hand had slipped from his back and now it was on his knee, her thumb making small circles inside the joint. He talked better when they were touching, it made his head a little clearer and centered him on the moment, assured him of who was present and let him try to order his thoughts. No one had figured it out, before Rachel.
“And?” she prompted.
“My dad—the person my mom married—he wasn’t my dad,” Tobias said, feeling himself fumble the words.
“Tobias,” Rachel said, sympathy softening her voice—of course Rachel knew what it was like for a parent to have lied, he didn’t know much about the divorce but he knew enough—and he shook his head sharply, dropping his hands from his face and looking at her.
“I’m not done. My dad—my real dad—I don’t know how it happened—I had no idea--”
“It’s okay,” Rachel said when he broke off and scrambled to find the words. “Just. You know. Blurt it out.”
All right then. “It was him,” Tobias said in a clumsy burst. “Elfangor. He lived here, on Earth, as a human, and then he was just erased—the Ellimist, probably. He left the letter for me, after he had to leave and join the war again.”
Rendering Rachel speechless was considered an accomplishment, but now it just made Tobias feel miserable. Tears were burning in his throat again and he closed his eyes, trying to force them away through sheer willpower. …though you will never know me and we will never meet… He had always grieved Elfangor’s death—Elfangor was a hero, brave and desperate and gone—but this. This was worse.
The impact of Rachel grabbing him in a hug took Tobias by surprise and he froze for a moment, her arms wrapped tight around his shoulders and half-way sitting in his lap to make it possible. It took an additional beat to cautiously lift his arms and hug her back, listening to her voice and trying to steady his breathing in line with her own. Tobias had never been particularly good at hugs, but Rachel had never seemed to care, and he was hardly going to argue. His hawk body didn’t crave contact, and he forgot so easily the human need for touch, the way that feeling Rachel’s heartbeat against his own ribs and the warm spots of her hands on his back eased something in his chest. He needed that, right now.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Tobias, I’m so sorry.”
Aria was a lie. Elfangor was dead. Tobias had no idea how Ax would react, after learning this. All the rest of his family had been sliced away in one fell swoop. There was no one left on Earth outside of the Animorphs who gave a damn whether he lived or died.
He pressed his face into Rachel’s shoulder and let himself cry for a few moments as she clutched him, firm and protective and strange, but good.
“He said that he wanted to stay,” Tobias said once his tears had stopped, his voice muffled by Rachel’s robe, and her grip grew impossibly tighter. He thought he could hear his ribs creaking under the pressure, but he was equally sure that, if she let go, he would fly into a million tiny pieces. “He said that he wanted--” Tobias’ voice broke, and he had to swallow a few times before he could talk again. “That he wanted to love me.”
It put Elfangor in a very small group, Tobias thought with a certain level of bitter humor. Although, as Rachel was a part of it, the group was undoubtedly good company.
“Of course he did,” Rachel said stoutly, tucking the sharp point of her chin on Tobias’ shoulder and making a little huh noise of indignation. “You’re wonderful.” Tobias repressed the strange urge to cry again and, instead, let out a ragged laugh.
“God, I—I don’t even know what to do,” Tobias said softly, raising his head. He was a little taken aback—Rachel was somehow much closer than he’d thought—but she seemed perfectly at ease having this conversation with a three inch distance between their faces. Tobias didn’t stop her from carefully rearranging herself to keep a line of contact all the way down one side, or from taking his hand.
“Do you want to tell the others?” Rachel asked after a moment. They were about the same height sitting down, and Tobias just had to turn his head slightly to see her face, watching him.
“I—I don’t know,” Tobias admitted. “I should. In case anyone else knows. Aria—Visser Three seemed pretty excited about it.” The galaxy will not soon see his like again. “What am I going to tell Ax. He’ll never speak to me again.”
“Of course he will,” Rachel said, not quite a scoff.
“How--?” Tobias whispered, and hoped that Rachel could hear the rest of the sentence that got lost somewhere between throat and tongue. How do you know?
Rachel sighed, turning his hand palm-up between hers and tracing the creases with her thumb. He watched, almost fascinated. Hands. The top thing he missed about his human body was definitely hands. Rachel’s were long-fingered and deft, with strong tendons and sure movements from her gymnastics training, and the way the knuckles moved as she curled her fingers through his own was smooth and effortless. Tobias could watch Rachel’s hands all day.
“He won’t be angry with you,” Rachel said. “He might be surprised. But it would be stupid to be angry with you about something like this.”
Tobias managed a vague approximation of a laugh. “Sometimes people are stupid.”
“Well, he’ll get over it if he’s being stupid. We don’t really have time for him to never speak to you again, and Ax knows it.”
That sentence should be upsetting, Tobias thought, rather than reassuring. But it was reassuring, the promise that, no matter how this news went over, the whole lot of them were still them, still inextricably bound together by the bigger reality of the war. That, no matter how angry—or stupid—one of them was feeling, sooner or later they would have to at least learn to live with the others again. And Ax didn’t have anyone else who could even begin to understand what it was like to be so cut off from the world where he grew up. He’d lost everyone when the Dome ship went down and he was alone on Earth. Maybe that would be enough.
Tobias didn’t realize he’d said that last bit out loud until Rachel, bumping her shoulder into his, asked, “Enough for what?”
He didn’t really want to answer that. It took a moment to steel himself to say, “Enough to make him stick around.” The words came out flat, and Tobias looked down at where his own human hand was spread out on Rachel’s comforter. “After all,” he said, looking back to her and trying to inject some humor into his voice, “my track record with family hasn’t been great, especially not lately.”
The humor thing didn’t seem to have worked, because something black and deadly rolled across Rachel’s face like a storm. “If I ever meet your aunt and uncle,” she said through her teeth, “I’m going to kill them with my bare hands.” The shadow of how she looked after battle, blood-stained and hungry, lingered in her eyes and the set of her jaw. He believed her.
Tobias remembered the first time they had this conversation properly—it hadn’t been long after he got his morphing powers back, and she had asked, the first time they had sat together as two kids, with hands and voices, why he had been so at ease with abandoning his home. He’d shrugged, and said simply that it wasn’t much of a home. His uncle still hadn’t noticed he was gone, at that point, or more likely hadn’t cared enough to look.
Back at the beginning, when the first desperate oh God what do we do rush had started to wear off and the shock of their first sojourn into the Yeerk pool had turned into the harsh light of day—the cold reality of Tobias’ new life—they had all had a brief talk about it. About what to do with a missing person who wasn’t missing, a lost child who wasn’t a child.
Just forge a note from my aunt saying that I made it to her house, Tobias had suggested, utterly blithe. He barely knows what her handwriting looks like anyway.
What about her? Marco had demanded immediately. What’s she going to do when she never hears from you?
Nothing, Tobias had said, bemused. Nothing at all.
When he talked about it with Rachel, properly, all those months later, Tobias still readjusting to the length of his limbs and the dimness of human eyes, she had heard him out, very quiet and attentive. Uncommonly so. Rachel was a lot of things, attentive being among them. Quiet, though, was rare. He had explained—simply, he thought at the time, just a brief factual comment about well, see, my uncle drinks and I don’t know, I guess my aunt just likes having an attendant and that’s not ever what I miss about being human—and Rachel had sat stiller than he had ever seen her. Normally Rachel was a perpetual motion machine, pacing, tangling and untangling her fingers, bouncing her foot, raking her fingers through her hair.
Then, when he had shrugged and fallen silent, Rachel had risen abruptly to her feet, hands closed into tight fists at her sides, and announced, mostly a challenge, “They’re both fucking idiots.”
Tobias had blinked at her in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“You’re great,” she had said, pointing a dire finger at him like a queen passing an edict. “And they don’t deserve you.” Opening his mouth, Tobias hadn’t even been sure about what he was planning to say, but Rachel swooped in before he could get a single syllable out anyway. “No,” she had said firmly. “I’m right. Don’t say anything, just nod.” Tobias had nodded. “Good. Okay. Let’s go flying, and then maybe we can take Ax to the mall and see how many lattes he can drink before he vibrates out of his skin.” She had paused, putting on a show of consideration. “And then,” she had continued brightly, “I can just go toss your uncle’s house.”
Tobias had been surprised by the laugh that escaped his lips. “I think that would be against the ‘lie low’ thing we’ve got going,” he had said, dry. “But thanks,” he had added quietly.
Now, almost a year later, Tobias gave her another little smile, careful, conscious. “We’ve already tried to kill an alleged family member this week, I think we can leave it,” Tobias said, and Rachel made a derisive huffing sound.
“If you say so,” she said, graceless, and glared at a point on the floor for another moment or two before blinking it away, looking back to him. Her lips landed lightly on his cheek, and Tobias startled—there was still something unfamiliar about it. Rachel laughed quietly, a puff of air against his skin, and he turned to glance shyly at her. “It’ll be fine,” she whispered, so close that he could see each one of her lashes against her cheek when she blinked. “Trust me.”
“I do,” Tobias said, sincere. He could hardly say anything else. “Thanks,” he added. “You know. For listening.”
Rachel smiled, a wide and genuine thing that lit up her face like a fire catching. “I like listening to you.”
“Yeah?” Tobias asked, and she tightened her grip on his hand for a moment before she released it and looped her arms around his neck again. Looser, this time, easy and fond.
“Yeah,” she said. “And really. Ax will be okay. You’re both going to be okay,” she added, in that tone of command, as if daring the world to disagree with her. Tobias nodded, because there never seemed to be another option when Rachel spoke like that. And besides. He wanted her to be right.
“I still can’t believe it,” Tobias said.
Rachel shook her head, but what she said was, “Heroism runs in your family, I guess.” Her fingers toyed with the curls at the nape of his neck, in perpetual disarray, and Tobias held very still, trying not to shiver. “And besides,” she said more seriously. “You had a connection with him like none of us did, that first night. I practically had to drag you away.”
Tobias blinked away the memory, still viscerally immediate after all these months, of Elfangor offering them that swell of courage, all he had left to give them. “You held my hand,” Tobias said.
Rachel nodded absently, the same thousand-yard stare in her eyes, before she shook her head and looked at him again.
“Now,” she said quietly. “You should go talk to Ax.”
“I don’t--” Tobias shook his head helplessly.
This time Rachel really did settle into his lap, one effortless shift—if Marco ever saw them, he would never let it go. But there was a level of comfort to it, to having Rachel’s heart beating so close, her warm strength pressed up against him, the casual way she touched him as if it was something normal, something easy. Tobias had never had that, before. So when Rachel tucked herself against him, he only stiffened for a moment before wrapping his arms around her waist.
“Listen,” she said, barely a whisper but still as firm as iron. So close, he could see every detail of her irises, even with human eyes, her blue locked steadily onto his—green? Grey? Brown? He didn’t remember. “You can do this. It can’t be worse than what we do every day.” Tobias nodded, a shallow jerk of his head, and she gave another gentle tug on the curls at the nape of his neck. “So,” she said, almost businesslike. “You can give me a kiss, and demorph, and go talk to Ax. Agreed?”
Another nod, deeper this time, and Tobias said, “Agreed.”
“Okay,” Rachel said, and her smile bloomed again. “So, what are you waiting for?”
Her lips were soft, and still tasted a little like the icing on the cake.
Tobias, laboring for altitude outside and gliding back toward Cassie’s woods, hoped Rachel had been right. There would have to be a conversation with the others, at some point soon—this information was too valuable to have it sprung unexpectedly on them by some enterprising Controller—but Ax deserved to know in person. In private. Tobias was suddenly, desperately grateful for the hawk’s instinctive knowledge of how to fly, the best and most efficient way to trim his wings and tail to get the most lift he could out of the cool air. He didn’t have the presence of mind to do it himself, not now.
He was too busy reminding himself that hawks, to the best of his knowledge, couldn’t feel nausea, and that it was therefore all in his head.
Ax’s scoop was well-concealed at night, even with the top open. Tobias didn’t know if it was standard practice in Andalite housing to have a half-roof, with the rest of it cut straight into a hill, or if it was mostly for ease of construction here on Earth, but either way it made it easier to reach, for a passing bird. Ax was asleep, his legs folded up underneath him and his torso slouched in a way it never did when he was awake. There was something uncomfortable about the way Andalites slept—a high-pitched hum of cognitive dissonance between the deer half and the humanoid half. Things on Earth just didn’t work like that. The uncanniness of it was compounded by the stalk eyes. Tobias wasn’t wholly convinced Andalite stalk eyes had eyelids, and even if they did, they weren’t often closed in sleep.
Then again, maybe Ax was just paranoid. Tobias could hardly be one to judge.
One of Ax’s wandering stalk eyes passed over Tobias once, then again as he landed on the overhanging edge of the roof. Ax shifted, his tail rising from where it hung draped over his back and his main eyes blinking open.
<Tobias?> Thoughtspeech couldn’t be rough or mangled the way normal speech could, right after the speaker was woken up, but there was something—mumbled about it nonetheless. <Is everything all right?>
It took Tobias a moment before he could think how to answer. <No one’s hurt,> he said at last.
Something in his answer must have tipped his hand, because Ax rose to his feet and looked up at Tobias with his main eyes, scanning around them with his stalk eyes. <I was concerned, when you disappeared after the meeting with DeGroot. Rachel said to leave you alone.>
<I’m sorry, Ax,> Tobias said, feeling guilt boil up to mingle with the apprehension, hot and sick. <I didn’t mean to worry you.>
Ax offered him an Andalite smile, and said, <It’s all right. What can I do for you?>
<Ax…> Tobias trailed off, losing his grip on the thought, and ruffled his feathers, the hawk brain trying to ease his human anxiety by making him bigger, more threatening. Trying to take care of him, when his useless human problems made him so fragile. <We need to talk.>
<Of course.> Ax was worried again, taking a few prancing steps to see Tobias better and idly twisting his tail blade, the way a human might pace and wring their hands. Andalite hands didn’t really lend themselves to the rough nervous wringing that humans went in for, Tobias thought absently—too delicate, too specialized, and any harsh twisting could be painful. The most he’d seen Ax do was tap his fingertips together, a rapid self-soothing pattern of seven points and his thumb, when things were truly dire. Tobias hoped that it wouldn’t make an appearance during this conversation.
Tobias closed his eyes for a moment and breathed, trying to brace himself. <It’s about the—the letter that DeGroot had, the one from…>
<From your father?> Ax prompted when it was clear that, even in thoughtspeech, Tobias wasn’t going to make it through the sentence.
<Yeah,> Tobias said. <Ax, I—the letter. I didn’t know, I swear, it was-->
<Tobias,> Ax interrupted, and his thoughts carried a thick layer of alarm. His stalk eyes had stopped scanning, all four eyes focused on Tobias—bright green, silvered by the moonlight, and looking for injuries, Tobias thought, for some hurt that Ax could solve. <Are you all right?>
<Yes,> Tobias said, flaring his wings for a moment before he wrestled the instinct back down. Normally thoughtspeech was the ultimate solution to trouble speaking, even trouble like Tobias had once had—too many thoughts, trying to force themselves out of his mouth at the same time and ending up a jumbled mess. Apparently, even thoughtspeech could eventually hit overload. <I just. Need a minute.>
Ax nodded. It was a gesture that might look more normal if his stalk eyes didn’t stay fixed in place, giving him the impression of a puppet suspended by two thick cords at the top of his head. <The letter was upsetting?> he asked, a little puppyish in his concern. <I hoped…that it would offer you some answers about your family.>
Tobias bobbed his head absently, an approximation of a human nod. <Family’s important, for Andalites, right?>
<Extremely,> Ax said firmly. <Most pairings are not love matches, but there is never an excuse to tear apart a family as Rachel’s mother and father chose to.> He paused there, clearly remembering the short lecture Tobias had given him about how sometimes divorce was the better option, but plunged on without bothering to backtrack. <Once the children are adults, it is acceptable for the parents to seek other partners, but not before. Love pairings with children are believed to be…riskier, for fear that they prove ill-matched for parenting, or that their pairing breaks down under strain. And,> he added, his eyes hardening, <adoption of orphaned children is considered an honor and a responsibility. They are not allowed to go missing without a response.>
When Tobias had off-handedly told Ax that his aunt and uncle wouldn’t miss him, probably wouldn’t even notice, Ax had blankly asked if they had suffered a memory problem. The real explanation had made him so angry that his fur had bristled down his spine, his hands clenched into fists and his tail so rigid it was almost vibrating. Tobias’ aunt and uncle would probably never know it, but they’d been very lucky not to get unannounced visits from a furious alien and a rampaging bear. Monstrous, Ax had said—almost spat, really, as hard-edged at any blow from his tail.
It must have taken too long, Tobias turning over Ax’s words and trying to decide what he was going to say. Ax reached up a hand, barely tall enough even fully stretched out to brush Tobias’ feathers, and said, <Tobias, you are scaring me.>
<Sorry, Ax-man,> Tobias murmured, stirred back to life and out of his own thoughts.
<Why do you want to know about Andalite family dynamics?> Ax asked.
<Because.> Tobias ruffled his feathers again, bracing himself—was it possible for a bird to die of fear? For his heart to rattle so hard against the hollow bones of his ribs that it just gave out from the strain? Rabbits. Rabbits could do that, just drop dead from fright. He thought dimly that he might envy them.
<Because,> Tobias repeated, forcing steel into his voice. <The letter wasn’t from a human.> Deep breath, he told himself, and do it, put the words together and hope blindly for the best.
<It was from your brother, Prince Elfangor.>
The long beat of silence, the words hanging in the air like smoke, was the ugliest sound Tobias had ever heard. Worse even than the cracked sound after screaming stopped, or the wet crunching of bones breaking, or the melee howl of battle, because while all those horrible sounds were happening, he had better things to do than listen and feel his soul shrink under the weight of it.
<That is impossible,> Ax said, the thought entirely flat. <My brother had never been to Earth, prior to crash-landing here after the destruction of the Dome ship. You must be mistaken, or else they were attempting to trick you.>
<The letter was real,> Tobias said. Now that the first and most terrible sentence was out there, doing what damage it would inevitably do, the rest came easily, carried on a tide made up of a sort of numb resignation. <Signed Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. He knew my mother’s name, and when—when I met him, after the crash, he asked me about her. And Aria—Visser Three isn’t subtle. You know how he is, he couldn’t help talking about it. I’m not. There weren’t a lot of details in the letter, but it sounds like he came to Earth for a while with my mother, had a life here, and then. The Ellimist happened.> Tobias shrugged, but couldn’t seem to force his wings back down to lie flat, the hawk’s instinctive response to fear and hurt bristling, a silent promise to hurt whatever it was in return.
Ax made a noise—a real one, a soft huff of air through his nose, and bristled a little himself. <The Ellimist.>
<I don’t know how it was possible,> Tobias said. <For all I know, the Ellimist is powerful enough to—to unwrite a whole timeline or something. And leave me behind as some kind of mistake that slipped through the cracks.> That seemed reasonably likely—Tobias had thought about it, after the meeting and before he could bear to face anyone. Even with the Ellimist’s omniscient chessmaster’s viewpoint, one kid could probably get lost in the shuffle, especially one like Tobias.
<Elfangor went missing once,> Ax said distantly. <An Earth year or two before I was born. The time transition through Z-space was uncertain.> Then his eyes focused again, and Tobias couldn’t tell if the glass-like emotionlessness of the silvered green was real or just because he was too nerve-wracked to read anyone’s expressions, let alone an alien’s. <He never told me about it. Only that it involved the Skrit-Na. It’s a matter of record that Alloran was lost on that mission, but no one ever thought to ask Elfangor. He was just an aristh himself at the start of it. He was promoted on the spot to Warrior when he reappeared, but.> An Andalite shrug here, a far more complex thing than the human version, one that started at Ax’s shoulders and rippled all the way down to his haunches.
<You’re about the same age as we are,> Tobias said. <Give or take a year or two for relativity. That could have been it.>
<He was not missing for long enough to assemble a life on another planet!>
Tobias couldn’t help his feathers bristling a little harder, his wings flaring a little wider, as his heart started to sincerely threaten the integrity of his ribs, trying to hammer its way loose. <The Ellimist took us almost a decade into the future once,> he said, and knew that his voice showed his helplessness. <Just to prove his point.>
Ax’s hands rose, apparently without a thought, and he pressed the fingertips together, seven points and his thumb, in a steady pattern, quick and distracted. <True enough,> he said, and that emotionlessness fractured a little, confusion and distress showing through like paint under old wallpaper. <That would make us…family,> he said. The emotionlessness cracked a little more, more agitation flashing through, his hands pressing together so hard his nail-less fingertips paled a little under the pressure.
<Yes.>
<You will. You will tell the others this?> Ax asked, and his thoughtspeech sounded breakable with the weight behind it, like a leaking glass wall holding back a flood—about to shatter at any moment.
<Rachel already knows. I didn’t know how to—I asked her how to do this. I’ll tell the others at some point, tomorrow maybe. Before it comes back to bite us. I thought…> Tobias looked toward a tree on the other side of the scoop, feeling his heart seem to stop and give up all together, falling limp and useless in his chest. <I thought you deserved to hear it like this. If you’re angry, or you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to.>
<What?> Ax said, and he looked disoriented, as if Tobias had taken him off guard while he was absorbed in another thought. <No. No, I’m not—you are my best friend, Tobias. My shorm. I’m glad you told me. But…> Ax gave another shuddering shrug, main eyes narrowing in—anger, Tobias guessed from the harsh stomp of Ax’s foreleg and the anxious twirling of his tail blade. At least his hands had stopped fidgeting against each other. <I cannot believe that my brother abandoned his family. He was a great warrior, and an honored prince, but he left you here, alone.>
Tobias felt all the stiff anxiety drain out of him in a rush, leaving him reeling, all the hawk’s bluster evaporating into confusion. <Oh.>
<Elfangor—he was a good person,> Ax said, and Tobias hadn’t heard him sound so much like a lost child since they had first told him, on the sunken Dome, that his people were dead, that his brother was dead, and that he was trapped on an alien world with strangers. Alone. <I always believed that. But—but he left you here.>
<The Ellimist took him away,> Tobias said quietly. <He didn’t say as much in the letter, not outright, but it was pretty clear that he didn’t want to leave.>
Ax didn’t look much less angry, but he sounded more like himself, assured and annoyed rather than young and lost, when he repeated, <The Ellimist.> He idly whipped his tail around, the blade producing a snap as it passed through the fastest point of its arc, and said, <I dislike him.>
<We all do, Ax-man,> Tobias said with an automatic trace of weary humor, and came up short, looking to Ax to see if the nickname was still welcomed. <Are you…okay with this?>
Prancing in place again, a nervous sort of movement, Ax laughed a little, the ripple of thoughtspeech distinctly colored with something not unlike hysteria. Tobias felt for him. <I am…adjusting my world-view accordingly.>
<Yeah,> Tobias said. <Yeah, me too. Like I said, we never have to talk about it again, if you don’t want to.>
<No,> Ax said, quickly, <no, it’s fine.> He paused before he continued, careful and articulate, as if placing each word on top of a house of cards. <I miss my family very much, sometimes. And there is no one on Earth I would rather have as family than you.>
The words were been a reassurance, something to settle Tobias’ mind and put him at ease—there should have been a breath, there, a lessening of tension. Not this fear, creeping back in.
<Right,> he said. <Family.>
Tobias had never been much of a crier. There had never seemed to be a point. He probably cried more in the past day than in the whole year prior to getting trapped. And yet, now, his mind had dragged up the memory of a throat raw from sobbing, so real and vivid that for a moment Tobias forgot that thoughtspeech would never show the cracked sound he associated with the feeling.
How did a family work, anyway, Tobias wondered, his heart starting its nervous rattle against his ribs again. It couldn’t be a matter of…keeping a safe distance and staying out of each other’s way, not like he had grown up knowing it. Rachel’s family, Jake and Cassie’s families—they weren’t like that. He had barely started to learn how to navigate friends, under the most high-pressure circumstances he could imagine, he could barely stand to think about figuring out a family—
Ax’s voice, interrupting the fast-rising storm in Tobias’ chest, was a blessing. Ax had always had a good sense, in his blunt and forthright way, for how to cut through the tension in Tobias’ mind, and it didn’t fail him now.
<Nothing needs to change,> Ax said, and Tobias could almost feel the lurch as his thoughts came to a sharp halt. Like a car engine under Marco’s tender ministrations—pop the clutch, and listen to it die.
<What?>
<Nothing needs to change,> Ax repeated. <We are friends. I believe the Earth term would even be ‘best friends.’> He hesitated, glanced up, almost too quickly for Tobias to notice. <I have never had a best friend before, but I think I have done all right at it.>
<Yeah,> Tobias said softly. <Me too.>
<And by my people’s laws, shorm are as close as any family member. Even if—even if you were not my brother’s son,> Ax continued, and recovered admirably from the stumble, <you would be his family. Because you are my shorm. Do you—does that make sense?>
Tobias waited until he was sure he could complete a thought, and said, <I guess so.>
<Do you…wish otherwise?> Ax asked.
<No,> Tobias said automatically, and was surprised that it was true. <I just—listen, Ax-man,> he said with a fragile laugh. <I’m not much good at having family. I’m barely any good at having friends. I never really…had those, before. And I never had family at all, after my mom disappeared.>
Tobias only remembered a little of his mother—how pretty her name was, and the way she laughed, and how she would tickle his cheek with a lock of hair. He didn’t remember enough to know what sort of person would fall in love with her, or if she was the sort of person who would fall in love with an alien soldier. He had no idea what his life might have been like—what he might have been like—if he had been raised Tobias Fangor, with a father who had given up a whole universe for his mother and a mother who had taken an alien home. All he really knew about his parents was that his mother had laughed, and, as of today, that his father had wanted to love him. It was hardly enough to build an imagined life on.
He had no idea how to even begin to tell Ax any of that.
<Well,> Ax said, and he didn’t have a jaw to set, but his tail bristled and his legs stiffened and he lifted his head, and it gave the same stubborn impression anyway. <You are doing marvelously, and I am sure we will figure it out.>