[Fic] Memorial (Animorphs)
Title: Memorial
Pairing: Loren & Naomi friendship; Tobias/Rachel
Summary: Loren reflects on a friend she never thought she'd have.
reposted from tumblr.
I wouldn’t have ever predicted that Naomi and I would become such good friends. Especially when the first thing she ever said to me was “Don’t let him get her pregnant.”
“Excuse me?” I’d asked, mere hours into my stay at the refugee camp.
She pointed in the direction Tobias had just walked off in, excusing himself to go hunt for his dinner. He had stopped to talk to the blonde girl-Rachel, the elephant, if I remembered correctly. “My daughter,” Naomi explained.
I hadn’t noticed anything before, but now I did. We couldn’t hear what they said, but she was leaning close. His face was expressionless, but one of his hands rested on small of her back. I closed my eyes at the wisp of memory: the hands of a man with startling green eyes, who also hadn’t known what to do with a mouth. Blue? I shook my head and scratched the top of Champ’s head.
“Hey,” Naomi said, seeing my distress. “You know, I didn’t even know my daughter had a boyfriend. How bad a mother does that make me?”
“A week ago I didn’t even know I had a son,” I’d replied.
After the war, after my found son became lost again, I was a wreck. I hadn’t mourned him so deeply when he was a baby, but that was before I knew about his bravery, his gentle kindness, his good soul.
Sometimes, when the day was warm and the thermals were good-he’d taught me about thermals-I’d drive out to Rachel’s memorial, the last place I’d ever seen him, and lie on the grass and gaze up at the sky. Thinking. Looking. The first anniversary of the war was one such day.
But I hadn’t passed it alone. I hadn’t been there even fifteen minutes when I heard the crunch of shoes on gravel. I looked up, and Naomi was standing before me, tears in her eyes. I felt flooded with shame. What right did I have to mourn at this memorial? What was my grief compared to a woman who had known her daughter from birth to ashes?
“Loren,” she said, but she didn’t give me any time to blurt out an apology. “I’m sorry,” she said, first. “I’m sorry he left because of her.”
And then we were both crying and she laid on the grass beside me and we both looked up at the sky.
“There,” she said, after nearly an hour. She pointed.
I shook my head. “That’s an eagle,” I said, and despite ourselves, we laughed.
Pairing: Loren & Naomi friendship; Tobias/Rachel
Summary: Loren reflects on a friend she never thought she'd have.
reposted from tumblr.
I wouldn’t have ever predicted that Naomi and I would become such good friends. Especially when the first thing she ever said to me was “Don’t let him get her pregnant.”
“Excuse me?” I’d asked, mere hours into my stay at the refugee camp.
She pointed in the direction Tobias had just walked off in, excusing himself to go hunt for his dinner. He had stopped to talk to the blonde girl-Rachel, the elephant, if I remembered correctly. “My daughter,” Naomi explained.
I hadn’t noticed anything before, but now I did. We couldn’t hear what they said, but she was leaning close. His face was expressionless, but one of his hands rested on small of her back. I closed my eyes at the wisp of memory: the hands of a man with startling green eyes, who also hadn’t known what to do with a mouth. Blue? I shook my head and scratched the top of Champ’s head.
“Hey,” Naomi said, seeing my distress. “You know, I didn’t even know my daughter had a boyfriend. How bad a mother does that make me?”
“A week ago I didn’t even know I had a son,” I’d replied.
After the war, after my found son became lost again, I was a wreck. I hadn’t mourned him so deeply when he was a baby, but that was before I knew about his bravery, his gentle kindness, his good soul.
Sometimes, when the day was warm and the thermals were good-he’d taught me about thermals-I’d drive out to Rachel’s memorial, the last place I’d ever seen him, and lie on the grass and gaze up at the sky. Thinking. Looking. The first anniversary of the war was one such day.
But I hadn’t passed it alone. I hadn’t been there even fifteen minutes when I heard the crunch of shoes on gravel. I looked up, and Naomi was standing before me, tears in her eyes. I felt flooded with shame. What right did I have to mourn at this memorial? What was my grief compared to a woman who had known her daughter from birth to ashes?
“Loren,” she said, but she didn’t give me any time to blurt out an apology. “I’m sorry,” she said, first. “I’m sorry he left because of her.”
And then we were both crying and she laid on the grass beside me and we both looked up at the sky.
“There,” she said, after nearly an hour. She pointed.
I shook my head. “That’s an eagle,” I said, and despite ourselves, we laughed.