Epilogue
The CNN anchorwoman
looked up at the monitor, tears in her eyes. "A day of celebration has
been tainted with sadness today, as the Animorphs canceled their scheduled
appearances today. Jake, Cassie, Marco, Prince Aximili and Tobias called
a somber press conference this morning at Marco's LA home. Cassie made
the announcement that late last night, Rachel died of a drug overdose.
She was 18 years old."
The screen cut
from the anchorwoman to the press conference, Cassie taking Jake's usual
place in front of the microphone. "Rachel had been struggling the last
two years with drug and alcohol addiction," she said, pausing every few
words to sniff. "Last night these. . . these addictions proved too strong
for her." She sobbed and crumpled up the paper she'd been holding in her
shaking hands. "Rachel was the strongest and bravest person I know. She
survived so much. Today we're asking that. . . that instead of holding
your usual parties to celebrate your freedom. . . use them to celebrate
life. Your life, the life of your family and. . . and Rachel's life." She
broke down sobbing. The last image of the conference was of the remaining
Animorphs huddling together and shuffling back up the driveway to Marco's
home.
***
The Ellimist and
Crayak, of course, watched it all.
"Couldn't you
see this happening?" Crayak asked. "Was this more merciful than my way?"
"She fought until
the end this time," the Ellimist answered flatly.
"She was weak.
Like all humans. I did her a favor."
"I thought she
was your favorite."
"She was the
Drode's favorite," Crayak clarified. "She suited my purposes for awhile,
but I grew bored. Her time was over two of their years ago. You should
never have altered things."
"You shouldn't
have, either."
Crayak scoffed.
"You still won and my goals were achieved. I grow weary of watching this
planet. Shall we start a new game?"
The Ellimist
couldn't resist. His time with the humans, especially the Animorphs, was
over. It was time to move on. "What are your terms this time?"
***
Author's Notes: Wow.
It took me a year and a half, but I managed to finish this silly fic. And
all I can say is thank you to those of you who've kept up with it, even
after the year long break I took from this fic. I especially need to thank
Jinako-chan, Ross and everyone else whom I love on the anirarepair mailing
list. This fic never would have started without you guys. Granted, this
fic only superficially resembles what my original plan was (I never did
complete that challenge!) but you all helped keep me going and gave me
feedback on this. Thank you.
Now, I know everyone
wanted Rachel to live, but there are some things about this fic I couldn't
alter from my original vision, and that's one of them. I love her, too,
and this fic has been a huge undertaking. I did take some of your comments
and used them in here, such as making sure all the other Animorphs had
screen time (as it were), because originally this was all Rachel and Cassie,
with a tiny cameo by Tobias (when he was watching the news in the last
chapter). I'm sure you've noticed that I'm not dealing with The One. I
never intended for this fic to tie back into the canon plot of the books
and I, frankly, feel that most of book 54 was bull. So no messy subplots
with trying to "rescue Ax."
Though of course as
I write this I start getting ideas. ~chases away her muse~
Anyway, the reason
for this sudden push at finishing Breakdown is that in six hours I'm leaving
for my first year of college, and I have no idea how much time I'll have
to work on my fics. So I figured I should finish this one, one of my all
time favorites, up while I knew I had the time. I obviously pushed it as
much as possible, but here it is. Thanks again for reading. Hopefully it
won't be another year before you have something of mine to read again.