Chapter Ten ~ The Year Continues

"Oh, and if I forgot to tell you guys before, I'm really sorry."

Marco sat up abruptly, slamming his forehead into the rafter. When the (exaggerated) groans stopped, he complained, "Ax, you've said that, oh, I stopped counting after the six hundredth time, in the last week. Enough! We understand! And we forgive you! That's what friends are for, right?"

Seven teenagers were reclining on the freshly-delivered pillar of hay in Cassie's barn. Unlike other stacks, this reached nearly up to the ceiling. Jake and Cassie were side by side, holding hands. So were Tobias and Rachel. Erek, Ax and Marco were between the couples.

"You guys are really sickening, you know?" Marco continued. "All lovey-dovey. If the rest of us weren't here you'd probably be removing each other's tonsils already."

"Marco," Rachel said amiably, "There's not much stopping me from throwing you off, is there?"

Erek unexpectedly interrupted, "Guys, ssh. This is quiet time."

"Quiet time? Whoever thought that phrase up?" Jake asked rhetorically.

"Well, actually, it originated because…"

There were protests from the others. "Erek, stop! We've had enough of history," said Rachel. "I think I failed the quiz he gave us today."

"You?" Cassie looked astonished. "Fail?"

"Rachel? Fail?" Ax mocked. "Do I suck at basketball?"

Laughter.

Marco pointed out, "You got the talent from ME, of course. Super strength of whatever from the evil shark tooth, but talent? Completely natural! Genetics, man."

Rachel coughed. It sounded suspiciously like "Bullshit!"

Jake was still pensive, and serious. "You're sure the necklace is destroyed? And no-one linked it to you?"

"If it had, we wouldn't be here now, wondering…"

"I had a dream," Tobias said.

"Isn't it 'I HAVE a dream'?" Marco queried.

"An Ellimist dream, Marco, not a Nelson Mandela speech."

"Oh. Well, I knew that."

"And?" prompted Cassie.

"I saw… the necklace being swept up by the janitor after the game. And into the trash compactor. Ellimist was very smug. He said Crayak would not be able to get it back."

"That's a load off my mind," Ax sighed.

"The sun's set," Erek pointed out, "We should all be getting home."

Murmured assent. They were all too comfortable to seriously think of moving.

"And Tobias only has seven of your minutes left in this morph," Ax pointed out.

That got a reaction. Marco sat up again, rubbed his smarting forehead, again, and cursed the beam, again. Then he remembered what he'd wanted to say. "They're everyone's minutes, Ax. Yours and mine. You're on Earth now. You're human. They're your damn minutes too!"

Ax was smirking. "Am I?"

"Are you what?"

"Human?"

"Yes!" Marco screeched impatiently.

Cassie said, more carefully, "Yes, I do think so, Ax."

"I can't remember, what it was like, to be…" his voice faded. Tobias disengaged himself from Rachel and patted Ax lightly on the shoulder.

"You haven't forgotten, Ax-man. You've got it stored away somewhere in that super-brain of yours, like the timekeeping ability and basketball talent."

Ax smiled. "Tobias, don't you think you should demorph? You only have five and a half minutes left."

Marco exalted, "By George, he's got it!!"

"Five of your minutes left, that is," Ax amended.

"We really all should be moving," Jake commanded, cutting short Marco's tirade.

They morphed, Tobias back into red-tail, Jake, Cassie, Rachel, and Marco into lizards who could scurry vertically down the stack. Ax and Erek simply rolled off, landing on the strategically placed bale of hay many metres below.

Seven teenagers exited from the barn and walked down their separate paths. Tobias took flight, calling back, The first star. Make a wish, Ax-man.

Ax paused at the edge of Cassie's compound and looked up. Sure enough, one lone star glowed enduringly in the opaque sky.

He thought about all they had been through, and all that had resulted from his desire to go to school. It had trapped him in this form.

No, it went back further than that, it traced its origins from when he strode proudly onto the Dome Ship alongside his brother. That was the turning point.

If he could go back, change the way things were, would he? He'd want to have come to Earth, he knew, but not to be trapped? If he was given that option, would he go back and change it? He looked at the star.

I wish...

No, I wouldn't, he decided. It has come to this. I have to go on from here.

Erek turned and looked at him. "You coming, Ax?"

Ax stared at the star. Didn't he want to be an Andalite again? He could cope. Tobias had. And the humans… he had come to think of himself as one, even before he'd been trapped. Perhaps, at heart, that was his destiny.

Ax thought of his friends, the humans. He remembered his friends on the Home World… not like these. The Animorphs, they'd all been through hell together. In fact, they seemed to take the weekly flight to Hell and back. By now they should have enough flyer miles for a trip to Heaven, at least. He'd settle for less. Life, in any form. That was a blessing, and not one to take for granted. You came to realise that, living, and battling for your entire species. Existing on the edge of a knife. Slip, and there would be no recovery of balance. You'd fall.

Ax pictured his true friends. Jake, his prince. Rachel, the enthusiastic Amazon queen. Cassie, the gentle one, forced into the war. Marco and Tobias, who had made sacrifices as profound as his. And now Erek.

Erek, patiently standing by the gate, held it open and looked back. "You coming, Ax?" he repeated.

I wish...

Ax tore his gaze from the star, turned to face Erek. "Yeah," he said. "I'm coming."

THEND.

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And that's that.

Thank you to everyone who ever reviewed this story, it was nice to know people do read it!

Deep gratitude to Portalkeeper87 and AniWriter … you two are my best "fans"! Couldn't have done it without you guys. Kudos.

Well, yeah. This is the END. Keep rocking all, now and forever!!

--Sera