theresnodoor | (no subject)

Tobias almost shifts human so that he can walk in and slam the door himself, but he doesn't. For some reason it would feel like admitting defeat, or something. And he's not prepared to do that.

Rachel hurt him, after all. And then acted all surprised that it had hurt.

He flaps silently through the door and perches on the back of the couch. His talon tense and relax, slowly shredding the fabric.

Rachel didn't morph for this. But the way she paces in front of the balcony doors is very like the way an agitated wolf stalks back and forth.

Even if the glare she sets on the hawk isn't hungry - just angry.

He waits.

She's the one who demanded this conversation. Tobias was just ~~going to suppress and avoid it for as long as possible~~ fine. Really.

It takes a moment for her to stop pacing, stop moving. But her eyes never leave him.

Even when she crosses the room to slam the door a third time.

"I," she snaps, low and angry, "did not leave you."

<What do you call it, then?> he asks, voice completely flat.

"Saving you!" she explodes, arms flung wide in exasperation. "And everyone else!"

... Well, there was that.

Not that he was going to say so right now.

<So you didn't leave?>

"Oh, shut up," Rachel snaps, starting to pace again. "What was I supposed to do?"

And old advice, advice he'd given her on how to shut Jake up when he was trying to lecture her-

"What would you have done?"

...

She knew the answer to that. He would have given anything to keep her safe.

But he wasn't going to let her cut him off like that.

<There had to be a way that didn't result in you dying!>

And he's just going to ignore that second question.

"Like what? What other way, Tobias?"

<You didn't have to leave me!>

Er. He meant to say 'you didn't have to go' there.

"It was either this or die with you!" Rachel yells back - and her throat tightens at the thought.

There isn't one reason why she followed orders. But this is an important one.

"Somebody had to do it and it had to be me, you know that!"

<It did not have to be you!> It could have been him!

Somehow.

"Were you going to do it?! If Jake had asked you instead of me, would you have done it?"

<If it were you or me?>

Yes.

"That's not what I asked you!"

Because that was obvious.

"If you'd been the one he talked to, if he'd told you what he needed done, would you have done it?"

Tobias doesn't answer.

Because they both know what it is, but if he doesn't say it then it's like it can't be used as evidence in this argument.

Rachel stops her pacing, just to look at him.

Her smile, if it can be called that, is grim and satisfied.

It's a rhetorical question. Jake hadn't asked Tobias or anyone else. He hadn't really asked Rachel, either. He hadn't needed to.

He knew her place.
And so did she.

It shouldn't have been, though. It should have been no one's place to make that sacrifice.

But it especially shouldn't have been hers.

He doesn't say that, though.

They all had strengths and weaknesses. Jake learned all of them - had to - but he wasn't the only one. Even Rachel is sure, if Tobias would let himself think about it, he'd realized it had to be her. It had to.

Everyone else had so much more to...

"...we were never going to get a happy ending, Tobias." She leans back until her spine touches the bar at the kitchen, and lets her shoulders slump, looking at him. The words are heavy on her tongue.

"There was no way out. And I wasn't going to risk you and everyone else on... god, it wasn't even a chance. We all knew Tom would turn on us the first chance he got."

She said 'we', and the one he heard was her and him.

<So we never had a chance?> he asks with a scowl in his voice. <So you just give up?>

Her gaze sharpens on him. She'd tried to be gentle, to be honest.

"If I'd given up, we'd all be dead and everyone on Earth would have a Yeerk in their heads!"

<You don't know that!>

There had to have been another way!

"Well, it's a lot more likely than your idea! Which was what? Trust that everything will just turn out all right?!"

<My way would have involved not getting the best thing that ever happened to me killed!>

And she acted like it was nothing.