If They Never Came
Title: If They Never Came
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters/Pairings: All mains and a few minors; brief Jake/Cassie
Notes/Spoilers: No spoilers except one family's name. AU.
Rating: PG
Summary: This is how their lives were meant to go. It was the Yeerks that destroyed them.
I feel like I gave too many of them tragic deaths . . . ah, screw it. Nothing wrong with a little tragedy. Natural causes are boring.
After many years’ service to the military, Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul retires and returns to the Andalite homeworld, where he lives out his days in peace and solitude. When he dies he receives a hero’s send-off.
Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill is eventually promoted to warrior but never quite manages to step out of his brother’s shadow. Home on leave, he meets a female and begins to court her. They marry, and she discovers that she is with child the day he leaves for a mission on a Dome ship. Three months later the burnt-out hull of that same Dome ship is found caught in orbit around an uninhabited moon. The bodies are never recovered.
Tobias Kelly struggles through high school and, on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, finds his uncle’s razor and with a few quick swipes he takes his own life. Not one person attends his funeral.
Tom Berenson goes to college on a basketball scholarship. In his senior year he injures his knee and is forced to quit the team. During his physical therapy, he meets a young intern and falls in love. They marry and, childless, he dies of natural causes some years later.
Jake Berenson and Cassie Young date through middle and high school. After graduation, Cassie heads off to UC Davis to study veterinary medicine, and when Jake leaves for West Point they decide it can’t last and break up. Jake does two tours in Iraq and near the end of the second, he returns home, shellshocked and badly wounded. He recovers, mostly, and spends some time trying to find a profession that fits, flitting from job to job as he attempts to return to civilian life.
Unaware, Cassie graduates vet school and settles down, marrying at the age of twenty-six. She has a daughter, but it’s an unhappy marriage, and at thirty-one she reconnects with Jake. They have a brief affair but it doesn’t work out and they break it off by mutual consent, returning to the lives they had before. She dies of Alzheimer’s at seventy-three, and he of heart failure at seventy-five.
Eva Wells lives happily with her husband until the day of her death at age sixty-eight. She dies quietly in her sleep and never feels a thing.
Marco Wells drops out of his sophomore year of college and begins to pursue a career in stand up comedy. He never becomes well known and performs in small clubs and restaurants, always hoping for his big break. He remains good friends with Jake until his death in a car crash at age forty-six. Jake speaks at his funeral and cries.
Jordan Berenson follows in her father’s footsteps and becomes a news anchor, marrying three times and divorcing twice. She has two sons, twins, and dies in childbirth at age forty-two.
Sara Berenson goes to law school on the East Coast, but later drops out and returns to California to start a family. She has three children, all girls, and names the two eldest after her sisters. She battles with depression on and off throughout her life and overdoses on antidepressants at the age of fifty-four. It’s never known whether she committed suicide or if it was an accident.
Rachel Berenson manages a successful career as a businesswoman, with a part-time job as a gymnastics coach on the side, but she always feels like she’s not quite cut out for a sedentary life. She marries once, but divorces him soon after, never one to stick with something that makes her unhappy. She’s diagnosed with terminal breast cancer at thirty-nine and dies two years later, fighting all the way.
Never connecting, the Animorphs and their families lead their separate lives, each unaware that somewhere out among the stars, the Yeerk War still rages on and will for many years to come.
Fandom: Animorphs
Characters/Pairings: All mains and a few minors; brief Jake/Cassie
Notes/Spoilers: No spoilers except one family's name. AU.
Rating: PG
Summary: This is how their lives were meant to go. It was the Yeerks that destroyed them.
I feel like I gave too many of them tragic deaths . . . ah, screw it. Nothing wrong with a little tragedy. Natural causes are boring.
After many years’ service to the military, Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul retires and returns to the Andalite homeworld, where he lives out his days in peace and solitude. When he dies he receives a hero’s send-off.
Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill is eventually promoted to warrior but never quite manages to step out of his brother’s shadow. Home on leave, he meets a female and begins to court her. They marry, and she discovers that she is with child the day he leaves for a mission on a Dome ship. Three months later the burnt-out hull of that same Dome ship is found caught in orbit around an uninhabited moon. The bodies are never recovered.
Tobias Kelly struggles through high school and, on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, finds his uncle’s razor and with a few quick swipes he takes his own life. Not one person attends his funeral.
Tom Berenson goes to college on a basketball scholarship. In his senior year he injures his knee and is forced to quit the team. During his physical therapy, he meets a young intern and falls in love. They marry and, childless, he dies of natural causes some years later.
Jake Berenson and Cassie Young date through middle and high school. After graduation, Cassie heads off to UC Davis to study veterinary medicine, and when Jake leaves for West Point they decide it can’t last and break up. Jake does two tours in Iraq and near the end of the second, he returns home, shellshocked and badly wounded. He recovers, mostly, and spends some time trying to find a profession that fits, flitting from job to job as he attempts to return to civilian life.
Unaware, Cassie graduates vet school and settles down, marrying at the age of twenty-six. She has a daughter, but it’s an unhappy marriage, and at thirty-one she reconnects with Jake. They have a brief affair but it doesn’t work out and they break it off by mutual consent, returning to the lives they had before. She dies of Alzheimer’s at seventy-three, and he of heart failure at seventy-five.
Eva Wells lives happily with her husband until the day of her death at age sixty-eight. She dies quietly in her sleep and never feels a thing.
Marco Wells drops out of his sophomore year of college and begins to pursue a career in stand up comedy. He never becomes well known and performs in small clubs and restaurants, always hoping for his big break. He remains good friends with Jake until his death in a car crash at age forty-six. Jake speaks at his funeral and cries.
Jordan Berenson follows in her father’s footsteps and becomes a news anchor, marrying three times and divorcing twice. She has two sons, twins, and dies in childbirth at age forty-two.
Sara Berenson goes to law school on the East Coast, but later drops out and returns to California to start a family. She has three children, all girls, and names the two eldest after her sisters. She battles with depression on and off throughout her life and overdoses on antidepressants at the age of fifty-four. It’s never known whether she committed suicide or if it was an accident.
Rachel Berenson manages a successful career as a businesswoman, with a part-time job as a gymnastics coach on the side, but she always feels like she’s not quite cut out for a sedentary life. She marries once, but divorces him soon after, never one to stick with something that makes her unhappy. She’s diagnosed with terminal breast cancer at thirty-nine and dies two years later, fighting all the way.
Never connecting, the Animorphs and their families lead their separate lives, each unaware that somewhere out among the stars, the Yeerk War still rages on and will for many years to come.