A/N - Mid-#54. Spoilers.

My name is Tobias. Or it was. It isn't anymore. Red-tailed hawks don't have names.

I don't remember what it's like to have a name anymore. I don't remember what it's like to have hair, or hands, or feet, or a roof over my head. I don't remember what it's like to not have to catch my own food every day, to eat something that isn't raw and warm and fresh and sometimes still alive.

I don't remember what I looked like. I don't remember what it's like to speak, or to hold hands with a girl, maybe kiss her. I don't remember what her voice sounded like. I don't even remember what she looked like.

Sometimes I see an eagle flying overhead, and for a second I think that she's finally come to visit, maybe with a bag of fast food or maybe just to go flying. But then I remember.

Sometimes I see her standing in my meadow, just for a second, the sun gleaming off that golden hair and that fierce smile lighting up those beautiful blue eyes. But then I remember, and she's gone.

It's times like those that make everything unbearable, that force me back into the protective shell of the sharp hawk instincts and let hunting and flying and survival take over my mind until the human, Tobias, is able to crawl back into the open again and start over.

I can't tell you how many times I've considered giving up. Just not hunting, or jumping into a river, or flying up so, so high and then plucking out my pinions. I can't tell you how many times I would have been happy to go back to the war and let the Yeerks kill me. Or let Taylor torture me, over and over and over again, until I was dead, or driven into insanity so that at least in my head, she could still exist.

But the Yeerks are gone now. She sacrificed herself to drive them off. Jake sacrificed her, but she wanted to go. It was Tom's fault that she was there, but another Yeerk that killed her. I'm so confused, about what exactly what happened that day, about who to blame. It's been so long, and I've gone over it so many times – thinking about how things might have happened, could have happened, should have happened – that I'm no longer quite sure what did happen.

Sometimes I wonder where we would be if she'd survived. I might have decided to become human again, for her. We might have gotten married. Maybe even have kids, though she never struck me as the maternal type.

Doesn't matter now, though. She's gone. And I'm a hawk.

I'm glad. At least as a hawk, my life will be short. In a few more years my tail feathers will start to fade. A few more years after that, I'll be gone. No one will even notice. No one will mourn me.

Maybe someday Cassie will come back. Look around, wonder what happened to me. Whether I moved on or just dropped dead. Maybe she'll find my bones. Maybe not. Probably not. I don't really care.

At least I'll see Rachel on the other side.