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There's an interesting little group making their way toward the Cooper farm. It consists of three smallish dragons and what looks like an enormous ball of light.

No one's said much on the way back. For Rachel, it's out of frustration. They took it down and that's a victory, but they didn't get the father, the guy that started the whole thing, and that's making her tack it down as a failure.

But she'll mention that when they land.

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<You need to be more careful.>

Somehow he makes a bad thing worse. He just said "you" instead of "we".

Yes, he did. He singled her out as reckless and dangerous, and while it's not like Rachel isn't aware that she is or that everyone else knows about it, that doesn't stop it from hurting her when the person who loves her the most calls her out on it.

Her glare becomes furious before she even manages to snap out, "I think I might have figured out how to fight by now, Tobias. This isn't even a war."

It's too late for him to take it back. Apologies never go well between the two of them.

<That's not what I meant,> he says calmly. Even if it was what he meant. <It's just that we don't know this world. These threats.> The thing is that they don't know how to fight here.

"You know what you're saying a lot of lately?" Rachel snaps, still glaring at him, hands settling defensively on her hips. "'That's not what I meant.' Maybe you should start thinking before you say things to me because every time you say something you 'don't mean,' it's to insult me."

You need to be more careful.

I love you for you. Not what you look like.

"Maybe I know more about this world and the threats in it because I've been paying attention to them. You didn't argue with me when I told you about this, so why are you arguing it now?"

<You could have died out there!> Tobias snaps. He suspects that it was closer than she'll admit.

And the worst part is that he wasn't there to watch her back. That's what scares him the most. Her dying. Again. Leaving him. Again.

"I could die any time!" Rachel snaps back, louder - as if she'd been expecting him to use that. "There's been a million opportunities for me to die and I've always gotten through them - and what about you? The things that happened to you..."

She wouldn't say they were worse than anything that happened to her.

...not outloud.

Biting back that retort, Rachel glares at him, but it's softer now, more hesitant. She doesn't like where this is going, how they've been with each other, how he's been acting. But all the same, it isn't something she can ignore either.

"What do you want me to do?"

Tobias turns away. Because he doesn't know. He doesn't want her to change, he knows that. But if she doesn't change she's going to get herself killed again. She burns so bright, but that can't last forever.

He's not sure what he'll do if... when it happens all over again.

Rachel rests assured in the knowledge of one thing: she didn't die until she chose to. Luck and skill and determination got her through a war until she chose to stop fighting. That might not mean it will happen like that again, but... well, Rachel's not sure it doesn't mean exactly that.

She glares at him.

"I'm going back in. And again and again until this is done. This is what I do, Tobias."

It's like asking him to give up his wings, asking her not to fight.

<I know,> he says quietly.

He takes a deep breath and morphs human.

That he's morphing alone is odd, calls for a blink of confusion and a start to a question of "What-"

It's when she realizes he's morphing human that Rachel stares and finishes the question.

"What are you doing?"

"I know," he repeats the words with difficulty. He swallows.

"It's part of..." why he loves her.

But the words he had planned to say are gone. He doesn't know how to explain how scared he is deep down. How much changed when he lost her. And then when he found her again.

She can finish that sentence in her head and it might even make her smile - that somebody, somewhere, loves her for what she is. Even if he's afraid for her sometimes, he isn't afraid of her and she can't find the words for how grateful that makes her.

But none of it explains why he's human in front of her.

Guarded, confused, Rachel waits for him to finish.

"This is how you still think of me, isn't it?" he asks somewhat sadly.

Her jaw drops, just a little, and her eyes stay narrowed. It wasn't the question she was expecting - not the words, not the tone.

After a moment, Rachel presses her lips together and takes a breath. But her words still come out softly, almost a whisper.

"Why do you keep asking me questions you already know the answer to?"

"Maybe I'm hoping to find out I don't know the answers after all."

It almost hurts to say.

It hurts to hear. Rachel's face falls, but only for a moment before she forces it back into blankness. There are very few people that she'll let see her hurt, see her cry, and while Tobias is on that list, right now...

Right now, she doesn't want him to see it.

"You know the answers," she tells him, voice stiff and defensive. "I'm the same person I was at thirteen, at sixteen. I haven't changed."

He keeps expecting her to, just because their surroundings are different.

"I'm nineteen," Tobias says softly from his thirteen year old mouth.

"You're..." he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "You're just like I remember." Full of life and fury and the inability to quit.

"I'm the one who changed." Whether he means being a hawk or aging without her... it's not clear. Maybe he doesn't know.

He's older than she is. Even if it's so hard to see it that way, standing there in the body the Ellimist gave her. Even if it's been years since she really felt like a child.

He's older than she is, he's changed, and maybe he's left behind the things that-- don't fit anymore.

Rachel swallows and her bravery fails her. For a moment, her gaze flickers to the side of him, to the trees, the grass, anything but his eyes. "So what?" she demands, and would deny anyone who said her voice was hoarse.

"So..." he swallows.

"I'm afraid..." he chokes on the rest. He can't say it. Can't admit it.

"What?"

Quickly, fast, rip it off like a band-aid and maybe whatever it is he has to say won't hurt as bad as she's afraid it might.

"That I'm losing you." He's whispering. He doesn't even try to make sure he's loud enough to be heard. It's hard enough just to say the words.

She was wrong. It doesn't hurt less.

Rachel swallows hard and looks away. They could have chosen a better place to do this than the farm, but at least they're a good distance from the farm.

"I haven't moved," she says after a moment, and makes her voice loud - defensive bravado in place of confidence, looking up at him with a glare in place of anything else that might appear in her eyes. "You can't lose me."

The only way he'll lose her is if he walks away himself.

"Maybe it is my fault," he mumbles, eyes shifting to his feet. Maybe things would be better if he could just change for her.

His fault. Like them being together is some kind of mistake.

But then, maybe it is for him. Tobias has options, two morphs he feels at home in, he could find someone else. It's easy to fall in love with him - Rachel knows that.

But her?

She swallows again - her throat is tightening and it's getting harder and harder to do it. But she still manages to speak, manages not to make her voice break. "No one's making you stay with me."

She doesn't want to be just another disappointment in his life, just one more person that wasn't good enough for him.

Tobias' head snaps up, eyes blazing. "Damn it, Rachel, don't do this to me!"