Archive of Our Own

My name is Marco, and if you ask me, the worst possible day for anything life-shattering to happen to you is on a Saturday. 

You might think that a weekday is worse; you’d have to go to school the next day, right? But you’d be wrong to think that it’s worse than a Saturday, and your life is nothing like mine , so you can’t be talking.

Saturdays are worse than all of those other days. You know why? It’s because normally, Saturdays are the best day of the week. You can sleep in. You can stay up late. You don’t need to worry about finishing your homework, because you can just do it all on Sunday night, or during passing period at school. But if your life is changed on Saturday , then you can forget about getting your homework done. 

Heck, it would have been better to happen on a Sunday, because then you’d get a wake-up call with school starting, at least. With Saturdays, you have the so-called luxury of spending the next day in a fog, alone with all your thoughts, your dangerous thoughts, so the wake-up call on Monday is more sudden, more abrupt. And you’re still in that fog.

But that’s enough of the day-of-the-week talk. I’m stalling. All you need to know is that my mother is alive, and I found that out on Saturday. 

You should probably know the drill by now. You know who I am, and you know about my friends. You know why we can’t tell you much more than our names, and we could be lying about those, too. Who knows? Maybe my real name is Jared. I’m not telling you.

Anyway, I mostly spent Sunday trying to distract myself, but I couldn’t really bring myself to. She was in my head, her face, her eyes. Her memories. Her words. I knew she was one of them now. But I also knew she was in there somewhere.

Once, I’d told Jake that maybe he would have to destroy his own brother. I had said it with a sardonic smile. I was trying to get him to give up on the war. I didn’t want to lose him.

I still don’t. 

But now I’m wondering if I would have to destroy my mother, too. If I would have to kill her.

But I couldn’t spend time wallowing that day; my father needed me to be there for him. To be myself. Sunday was the two-year anniversary of my mother’s … of her supposed death. But you already knew that.

I don’t think I told you what happened on Monday, though.

Sunday night actually went better; my father and I actually enjoyed ourselves, each other. He’s working on getting his old job back, and we might even be moving soon. I was glad, still am, but I don’t really know how to feel anymore.

In any case, if Sunday had me feeling any better, by the time Monday rolled around, the feeling had vanished. Instead, all I was left with was this squirming in my gut, a bad taste in my mouth. Trepidation, maybe. It was even worse than what I usually feel on Mondays. 

But I wasn’t going to skip. Not today. I had to be my usual self in front of all the others; cracking jokes, making dumb comments, calling them insane. I couldn’t let anything show. 

I rehearsed my act in front of the mirror about an hour before school started. I took a few deep breaths. I squinted at my reflection, trying to get my face right; the usual expression that said I didn’t care. That I saw the world as a joke. 

Basically, you have to squint your eyes a bit, and look really bored in a way that still feels natural, and your smile can’t be too wide, because then people assume—

I glanced at the clock.

No time.

Muttering a curse, I stuffed everything in my backpack. I’d forgotten to do that homework. As I walked to the door of my room, my eyes caught that family photo on my desk. 

My breath hitched. I almost felt tears, which didn’t seem right — I’d just spent so long trying to undo that pathetic look on my face. If I went to school and faced the others and I looked like I’d been crying , that was just asking for trouble.

I looked away from the picture. I blinked multiple times. Get it together, you moron.

I thrust my backpack onto my shoulder, and left for school without a second thought.

-

I used to have fantasies about saving my mother, maybe from a desert island she might have miraculously washed up on. Maybe she survived, I’d tell myself. What if she survived? What if I could save her?

I played superhero a lot before she — before the Yeerk in her head faked her death. I guess I thought I was all that. I guess I thought I could rescue her, when in reality, I’d already failed. I wanted to slap myself. 

How hadn’t I noticed she was a Controller?

The question ran through my head, even though it was pointless, even though I knew I would have had no way of possibly even suspecting that when I was younger, or really, at all. I was just looking for someone to blame, and the closest available person seemed to be myself. 

I knew, of course, not to think about the past. I had to focus. I had to think about what was happening now, because it didn’t matter that my mother had been a Controller two years ago. Or maybe even three years ago. Or, possibly, even before that.

What mattered right now was that my mother was currently enslaved to the most powerful Yeerk in the empire. And actually, not even that; I had to put myself in someone else’s perspective. I couldn’t let my vision get clouded because this was my mother.

It wasn’t. It was the Visser. This was war.

I tried thinking about how Rachel or Cassie or Tobias might have thought of it. They didn’t recognise that woman. Just another human-Controller. That was all she was to them. Just another obstacle.

So that’s what she had to be to me, too. Just another one. Just another one of them. 

But even after all that thinking, I still couldn’t bring myself to believe it. She wasn’t just another one of them; she was my mother. Maybe I could still—

Reality, Marco. This isn’t one of your silly superhero fantasies from when you were younger. You can’t afford to think like that. This is reality.

Eventually, I reached the conclusion that maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about it at all. Did it matter? It wasn’t like I was going to be seeing her anytime soon, anyway. I could save the Visser One thoughts for our next encounter, if there ever would be one. Right now, I just had to ignore them. They were messing with my head.

But that didn’t change the fact that I had to fight in this war. There was just no question. 

I snapped back to attention when I ran out of pointless thoughts, and I looked down at my paper. Instead of taking notes, I had drawn a desert island. I grit my teeth. 

The teacher walked over to me, because I guess I looked kind of stupid, tightly clutching my pencil and glaring down at my notebook. She looked down at my drawing and gave me a look of pity. The kind of look that said, I understand, Marco. I’m sorry.

She didn’t understand. And even if she truly was sorry, I didn’t want her to be. 

My insides squirmed at her look. Poor Marco, she was thinking. I wanted to punch her. I didn’t.

“... Marco?”

“What?” I made myself focus again. 

“I asked if you’d like to take a walk outside.” She gestured towards the door.

See, that’s what I hate about teachers. There are the really strict ones that yell all day, and then there are the really soft ones who are way too nosy. Usually I prefer the softer teachers, because they’ll extend deadlines, but at least the strict ones don’t show sympathy where it isn’t needed. 

I quickly snapped out of the somewhat angry expression, and my grip on the pencil loosened. I leaned back in my seat. 

“Depends,” I replied, raising my eyebrows. “Does that mean I get no homework?”

She gave me a polite (pitying) chuckle, shook her head, and walked back around to the front of the room as most of the other kids finished jotting down their notes. I probably would have been a bit more mad (at myself? At her?) but the guy behind me laughed, so I took it as a win.

But then I caught Rachel’s eye from across the classroom. She was watching me. She looked at me somewhat pityingly, too, but instead of a “poor Marco” look, it was an “it’s cool, Marco, I’m going through it, too” look. 

Which was different than the teacher’s look. Which was better than the teacher’s look.

See, to put it in simple terms, my teachers — and most people, for the better half of two years — had been pitying me after my mother had “died.” Oh, Marco. He’s barely hanging on. He’s so lost without his dearest mother. He can’t do anything on his own. Poor Marco. Weak Marco. They all thought I was nothing without her, and I didn’t want them to think that, but even their attempts to not show me pity resulted in even more. I wanted to move on with my life, but their pity wouldn’t let me. They were thinking things about me I didn’t want them to think. They wouldn’t let it go.

But Rachel wasn’t thinking about that. She wasn’t thinking about my mother when she looked at me. She was thinking, that was a pretty tough Saturday, we all almost died, that has to be messing with everybody’s heads. 

Follow up the ant incident with this, and it wasn’t exactly the best week for any of us. 

Rachel’s look wasn’t pity, not really. And it wasn’t about my mom. She was thinking about how I was probably just struggling because I’d had a long week, just like she had, and that was exactly what I wanted her to think.

I couldn’t let any of them know it was more than that. 

I glanced down at my stupid drawing. I looked left and right, and then I quickly scribbled it out. 

When I looked up, my teacher met my gaze, and she was smiling, and it was pity.

-

My next class didn’t have any of the other Animorphs in it. That was good, because I was almost too tired to pretend anymore.

And it was bad, for exactly the same reason.

I was quiet throughout the entire lesson, but not like how I usually am — pointedly avoiding the teacher’s stern looks, leaning back in my seat, making wisecracks whenever I saw fit. Today, I just laid my head on my desk and stared out the window. 

At the sky.

My mother was up there, somewhere. I watched the sky closely, as if maybe I’d be able to see her. I saw her in my head.

Two years ago, I had thought I’d lost my mother in the sea. Now, I’d lost her in the sky. Two incredibly large expanses, endless, forever. 

Why did I keep losing her?

Whenever I thought about that, I got this quick rushing sensation in my throat, overwhelming me, making my breathing quicker and shallower and making my heart pound. 

She’s alive.

She’s alive.

I feel like I should have gotten over that already, but two days doesn’t have the same effect as two years. I thought she was dead. My dad thought she was dead. He still does, and he’s only barely hanging in there. He completely fell apart because he thought she was dead. 

But she isn’t. She was taken by the Yeerks. They were the reason all of this had happened. They were why my dad came closer and closer to killing himself every single day without her. He was only just starting to try and come back around, but what if it didn’t work? What if…?

She’s alive.

Yeah, thanks, Marco. You already knew that. 

I had to get over it. It was fogging up my thoughts. We couldn’t have someone on the team who was constantly getting distracted about every little thing because his thoughts kept drifting back to his mother being alive.

Alive and enslaved, I reminded myself. What had happened to not thinking about it?

The current problem was Visser Three, who I guess had a host body that was also important to someone, once upon a time. Some Andalite. But I didn’t care. I don’t even really know why I was thinking about it. I guess that’s what happens when you let your thoughts drift too long. You get all sappy about other people’s problems. 

I felt a hatred for Yeerks at that moment, stronger than ever before. How dare they? How dare they take my mother away from me, away into the sky? How dare they make her Visser One? Did they realise what they had done to my dad?

Then I had another thought. 

Dad. Maybe he was a Controller, too. He could be Visser Two for all I knew. I couldn’t trust him.

Maybe they would come for me next.

I kept staring out the window, propping my head on my hand. Then after a while I guess the bell rang, because I numbly registered myself getting up and following the other students out of the classroom. I’d have to ask someone for their notes later, if I could bring myself to care.

As soon as I was out of the classroom, I shook my head to clear the thoughts. I had to pull myself together. I ran a hand through my hair, and started walking towards the nearest bathroom to check my reflection. I thought I’d felt tears beneath my eyes a few minutes before; I had to make sure none of them had shown.

Then I saw Chapman.

 I tensed.

He was just standing there, watching everyone. I guess it wasn’t too suspicious: that was his job. But then we made eye contact, and he held it for too long. Or maybe I held it for too long. 

Or maybe it was just the completely normal length of time you’re meant to hold eye contact with someone, and I was just being paranoid.

Anyway, we broke eye contact and I kept walking, a bit faster now. 

A sudden, paranoid thought ran through my head. It hit me like a truck.

Chapman’s a high-ranking Controller, right? Did he … know? About my mother? Did he know Visser One had my mother’s host body? All those times he’d tried to pity me, had he known?

How long had the guy been a Controller, anyway? Rachel might be able to tell me. She’s friends with his daughter, Melissa, who has been increasingly neglected ever since her parents became Controllers. But then I’d have to explain to Rachel why I was asking.

Still, I couldn’t help but think it. Every time he’d show me pity, maybe he’d known . I quickly spun around, but I’d lost him in the crowd.

I exhaled through my nose. My heart hammered.

I turned back around. When I reached the bathroom, and was about to go in, I saw Jake.

He was walking across the hall, towards the cafeteria, and we made eye contact and held it for a few seconds, and I’m fairly certain we locked eyes longer than you usually do with someone, but Jake’s expression didn’t change. Didn’t shrivel into pity. He just nodded at me, an acknowledgement, and kept going. I returned the nod.

The bathroom was empty, which was a bit suspicious, but if anything, I was relieved. If I were to start having a nervous breakdown in here or something, I didn’t want a live audience. 

I checked my reflection in the mirror. 

Then I thought about my dad, staring into space when he thought about her , staring at me because I looked — because I look like her. Every time he does that, I tense up. I would wonder if I really did remind him of her. My hair’s not as dark as hers, but people have said we have the same eyes.

I stared into my reflection’s eyes. I stared a bit intensely, like I was looking for something. It had the added effect of making it look like my reflection was searching me. My throat closed up. I gripped the counter with both hands and leaned forward, as if I could really see anything in my own eyes. Her eyes?  

But then my reflection’s eyes began to tear up — again , because apparently I can’t stop crying now — and I quickly splashed water onto my face. Then I dried my face off with my sleeve, because I couldn’t have it look like I’d washed my face recently or anything. Everybody knows you wash your face when you’re crying.

Now I’d be late to lunch. Chapman would catch me in the hallway. Or maybe one of those nosy teachers. 

Whatever. I glared at my reflection, schooled my face into something normal, and left.

-

I would very much like to tell you that nothing interesting at all happened that day, and I know you’re getting bored by all this stuff about me going to school, and nearly crying, and overthinking things. I mean, it’s a pretty lame story. Wouldn’t make it on the Bestseller’s, that’s for sure. 

But believe it or not, there really is a point to all this.

I’m not going to bore you with how the rest of the school day went. I’ll actually have you know it went perfectly fine, because Jake didn’t ask any questions about my mom as we ate lunch together. We actually joked and argued about superheroes, and teased each other about homework, which took my mind off of things. 

Something about Jake can always make me feel better. Even when he’s not trying. Especially when he’s not trying.

But then when lunch ended, he reached across the table and grabbed my arm before I could stand. He leaned in close and looked both ways to make sure no one was watching.

Then he looked at me.

“One more thing,” he said, his voice suddenly serious. 

I stared at him, brow furrowed.

“I was talking to Cassie before you got here,” Jake continued, maintaining eye contact. “She and Rachel want to call a meeting after school. Usual place.”

“Okay,” I said. Then, “What’s it about?”

But Jake’s look told me everything I needed to know. 

Her.

My heart skipped a beat.

I guess my look gave away some shred of emotion, because Jake leaned back to give me some space. The cafeteria was emptying, so we both stood up.

“I won’t tell them anything,” he said simply. “It’s your choice, Marco.”

“Right,” I said, voice a bit hoarse. “Uh. Thanks.”

We parted ways.

I stared at the ground as I walked. It was stupid. I was stupid.

I’d been so caught up in what seeing Visser One meant for me that I hadn’t even thought about what it meant for the others. Sure, she was just another one of them , but she was also the most powerful. The most dangerous.

Of course they’d want to hold a meeting about her.

So much for letting it go. But I guess from their perspective, it was the most sensible thing to do. So I had to act like it was the most sensible thing to do, too.

-

We met up at Cassie’s. I was the first one to arrive, because I didn’t want anyone starting the meeting behind my back. This was personal.

Cassie waved me in.

Then came Jake and Rachel, who both arrived at around the same time. Tobias and Ax came shortly after. Ax was morphed as a beautiful human, which is a combination of the DNA patterns of my beautiful self and my beautiful friends. 

Jake sat down on the hay bale across from me. He gave me a pointed look before the meeting started.

Not pitying . To put it into words, he was basically telling me not to do anything stupid, but the way he looked at me, it kind of felt like a bit more than that. He’s a pretty serious guy.

“Cassie and I were talking about this at school,” said Rachel. “Visser Three and Visser One have some kind of political conflict with each other. Maybe we can use that.”

Cassie nodded. 

“How?” I asked. “We don’t even know where this Visser One person is.”

I don’t think it sounded as bitter as I felt.

“We don’t need to know,” Cassie replied. “The two of them hate each other to the point where they’re willing to sabotage each other’s missions. And maybe even their own, if they think it will work to harm or annoy or kill the other.”

That was actually a good point. I should have thought of that. I even might have, if I’d let myself think.

I suddenly thought back to our brief time on the mothership. My brief time with her.

Gold, red. Gold for her, red for him. Like ichor and blood. Like dreams and reality. 

Cassie’s word choice got to me, though. Kill. The Vissers would kill each other, if we pushed them hard enough.

Great news! 

It was a sarcastic thought, one that gave me a strange feeling inside. But if you twisted it enough it would be funny, so I decided to say it out loud.

“Well, that’s great news! If we can get them to kill each other, we won’t even have to waste time on them ourselves. They can just do our dirty work.”

<Sounds good to me,> Tobias agreed. 

Rachel and Ax also looked on board with it. I stole a glance at Jake; he turned to me and raised a brow. Like he was prompting me to say something, but not like an order or anything.

I did want to say something. It might have been stupid, but I’m sure if you’ve ever been in a room where nearly everyone is readily conspiring to get your mother killed, you’d have done something even more stupid.

“There’s just — one problem with that,” I said quickly. 

“There is?” Cassie asked.

“Yeah,” I said. There was a bit of silence, because I actually had to think of a valid problem. Which was hard, because the plan was actually good.

I probably should have taken that as a sign that I was just hindering our team’s efforts. 

My hands had become sweaty. I swallowed. 

“Well, first of all,” I said, lame excuse finally come up with, “how are you going to get Visser Three to sabotage his own missions when he knows Visser One isn’t on Earth?”

<Maybe we could manipulate him using thought-speak,> Tobias suggested. <If we do it right, we can get him to think it’s someone else talking.>

“I believe it would even be possible. Sssible. To get her location out of him,” Ax added. “Location. Cay-shun.”

For some reason my heart leapt up into my throat at that. 

Her.  

Visser Three, a lot of the time, was simply reduced to “him,” which when said with the right amount of terror and hatred in your voice, could let people know exactly whom you were referring to. 

Now Visser One was becoming “her.” Said with the same amount of terror and hatred. Maybe even more. I also hated Visser One. Probably even more than Ax. But when Ax or any of the others talked about killing “her,” they meant my mother.

My mother was “her.”

“That would be good,” Jake agreed. “If we could find out if she’s coming back to Earth anytime soon, we can be prepared.”

“We can catch her off guard,” Rachel said. “The six of us against one human being? She doesn’t stand a chance.”

My stomach dropped. 

“Well — maybe she does,” I said, a bit desperate. “She’s not Visser One for nothing.”

“I could take her,” Rachel replied.

I gulped. I envisioned it happening: Rachel morphing elephant and strangling her to death. Or impaling her with her tusks. I saw myself in gorilla morph, or maybe just as a human being, watching helplessly as she died.

“How?” I asked, willing my voice to be steady. “By flying up into space and chasing her down? Elephants don’t fly, Rachel.”

<He’s right,> said Tobias.

“Look,” I said. “The way I see it, Visser One isn’t our problem right now. She’s Visser Three’s. If we kill her, we kill Visser Three’s problem. Visser Three is our problem. If we kill the problem of our problem, then the problem of our problem of our problem will …. uh, nevermind. You get it.”

I was mostly looking at Jake as I talked, and he was watching me. His brow was furrowed as he tried to understand my logic, and I think he was trying to understand it for my own sake. I didn’t need his pity, but at least he understood that. And I couldn’t exactly get mad at him; there was nothing stopping him from telling them all. If anything, I owed him.

“That makes sense,” Cassie said with a nod. “Visser One is also against Visser Three to some degree. We could use that to our advantage. But if she dies, that won’t be an option anymore.”

Maybe we could fake her death , I thought bitterly. And then have her come back two years later. I’m sure she’d go along with it. Wouldn’t have been her first time.

Realising that everybody was staring at my somewhat frustrated expression, I smoothed it out into a smile.

“Yeah, what Cassie said.”

“No, like what you said earlier,” Rachel cut in. “She’s not Visser One for nothing. Just because she’s against Visser Three doesn’t mean she’s on our side. If we have a chance to see her again, we have to attack. This is the most powerful Yeerk they’ve got. It would be a major blow.”

<Wait,> said Tobias, <so are we killing her or not?>

Everyone turned to Jake.

He looked incredibly uncomfortable. He was looking at me, but I could tell he was trying not to make it obvious to the others. I leaned back a bit, trying to seem cool.

My heart was pounding so loudly I was certain Tobias could hear it. 

“Uh,” he said, and I could see the thought running through his head to put it up to a vote. He decided against it, though.

For my sake.

My stomach jumped, because whatever Jake said went, and since he was the leader of our group he had to think of what was best to hurt the Yeerks. He didn’t need to be worrying about me. It was stupid.

“We can’t kill her now,” Jake said, echoing what the rest of us had been saying.

He was stalling, clearly.

“The next time … ti-ime …we see her,” said Ax, who had been waiting very patiently for another chance to use his mouth to make sounds, “we should try to deal damage. Dam-mage. Day-yam-age. Duh.”

“We shouldn’t be making that decision now,” Jake pointed out. “It’ll depend on the circumstances.”

“I guess you’re right,” Rachel admitted. “But what about using thought-speak to trick the Visser into sabotaging his plans? We can do that whenever we want.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, because it was smart, “but he might find out it’s us. We don’t know Visser One well enough to know how she would communicate with him.”

It was actually a genuine concern of mine. It wasn’t just me stalling or whatever, not this time. Just for the record.

“ He is very similar to her ,” said Ax darkly. “I noticed. Tissed. Tiss-duh. They are both evil beings.” 

And they were. I hated the Yeerk who was in her head. Given the chance, I would kill it. Squish it between my fingers, stomp on it, stand over it and grin down and then help my mother off the floor. She would look down at me and say my name, and I would hear it in her voice for the first time in years.

And what if killing the Yeerk ended up killing her , Marco? Would you do it then?

“If we ever needed someone to pretend to be Visser Three,” Cassie said thoughtfully, “Ax would be our best bet. Being an Andalite and all. You two probably speak somewhat similarly.”

“Yeah, Ax, you really remind me of him,” I agreed. “Whenever I look at you, I have to do a double take. You look exactly like Visser Three. And you talk the same.”

Ax’s human face twisted in outrage. I laughed. Teasing him distracted me from the fact that most of the people currently in this room would kill my mother without a second thought.

“Did you have some kind of plan, Cassie?” asked Jake.

She shrugged. “Not really a plan. I’m just thinking. We should be prepared — you need to know your enemy. We should be paying attention to how the Vissers talk in case we ever need it.”

<Yeah,> said Tobias. <So if Ax is roleplaying as Visser Three, who’s got Visser One?>

“We should hold auditions,” I suggested. “We can make little brochures and everything.”

We all had a laugh over that. 

Eventually the final decision we came to was that we shouldn’t make a final decision when we barely knew anything. We also didn’t come up with someone to pretend to be Visser One, and I didn’t volunteer myself.

I was relieved with the way the meeting ended. My hands were so clammy after that, I could have filled a bucket with the sweat. 

At least no one found anything out. 

I was the last to leave. Again, I didn’t want the discussion to continue while I wasn’t there to talk them out of it. 

Jake didn’t say anything to me directly, but as we all parted ways, he raised an eyebrow at me. It was a question. 

I gave him a thumbs up, and he nodded and turned back to Cassie, and they continued whatever conversation they’d been having before.

I went home. My father was there. For once, he didn’t stare through me like I was my mother. Instead he just gave me a curt nod.

I went to my room.

The window was closed, and I stared out into the sky. I didn’t cry or anything. I’m not that lame. I didn’t cry, but I thought.

Someday.

Someday, I would save her. Or kill her. I didn’t know which. I knew what I wanted it to be. But since when do you get what you want in a war?

Whatever. We’d all decided to stop thinking about it, right? 

I set my backpack down; it was getting heavy, but I made no move to lighten it by getting my homework out. Instead, I sat on my bed with my chin in my hands. 

I thought about my father, sitting in the next room. He was trying to be a better dad to me, but it had been a day since he’d made that goal and he was still out there sitting on the couch. 

Maybe he would come around. Maybe he would feel better. I wanted him to — needed him to. Right now, my dad is only hanging on because of me. He’d kill himself if I died, and that’s a fact.

And I’m currently in a war. If I die … well, I want to make sure he’d still be okay. 

My throat clogged. I swallowed. 

My death … would it be at the hands of Visser One? The real, physical hands of my mother? Maybe she’d kill me. Maybe she’d kill me while I was in morph, and my mother would never know. Never know.

I stood up. I needed to talk to my dad; make him feel better, or something. Spend time with him. Make sure he could get back on that path to a stable life.

Maybe then, my death would hurt less.