Title: Merry Christmas

Author: Jenni

Rating: PG

Category: Romance

Keywords: Animorphs, Tobias, Rachel, T&R, Christmas

Spoilers: Eh, a little of #45, I suppose.

Summary: Tobias spends his Christmas Eve with his best friend.

Archive: Sure, just let me know.

Feedback: JenJaina

Disclaimer: Rachel and Tobias do not belong to me. These amazing characters belong to the Great Ms. Applegate. ::bows:: Red-tailed hawks belong to the even Greater God. ::bows lower::

My name is Tobias.

And there was no way in hell I was going to be getting any sleep.

Snow was falling on my meadow, muffling all noises. It had been snowing for some time now, and the ground was covered in pristine white. The tree on which I perched was heavy with the stuff.

Snow always fascinated me when I was a kid. There was just something about it, something that pulled me into a trance. For one thing, there was so much of it. It just kept falling and it never ended. I would stare into the falling snow for hours. An individual snowflake was small, delicate, frail. But when you put them together ...

A metaphor of my life, I suppose I thought of it. I felt small and insignificant, just waiting to join with others like me so we could blanket the whole world.

A cold wind blew through my dead tree, ruffling my feathers and making me shiver. This was no place for a hawk to be. But Marco was at the Hork-Bajir valley, and Ax was at the scoop, and I really didn't want to go there right now. Ax would just ask me what was wrong.

See, tonight was Christmas Eve.

Not that Christmas ever meant much to me back when I was a human. If I was living with my aunt I would get a present or two, and my uncle, for some reason, liked to wail along with Christmas tunes when he was drunk. Christmas was always a time when I would notice more then ever how different my life was from other kids. The conception of Christmas being 'merry' never held up for me, so I never said 'Merry Christmas' to anyone.

But this year was different. This year, I had Rachel.

Beautiful, lovely Rachel. Tall, blonde hair, light skin. Charming smile, infectious laugh, terrific personality. My Rachel.

She would be at home, warm in her room. Probably getting ready for bed after a delightful day of last-minute sale shopping. In a way, we were both hunters: I of mice and rats, she of sales and sweaters.

Okay, so maybe it was a bad analogy.

Anyway, I was cold, tired, and hungry, and I really wanted to see her. So I took off into the frigid night air.

From my birds eye view, the town looked magnificent. Snow fell softly and steadily, and the wind had died down to a whisper. From most houses trailed a wisp of smoke, gray against the white. Rachel's house was easy to see, and my heart leapt to see the light in her window. She was awake.

I fluttered my wings softly against the windowpane, and almost instantly it was flung open. She must have been expecting me.

"Tobias." She was grinning as I hopped through onto her dresser. She closed the window and turned to me.

Whoever came up with the idea of making snow cold? I asked grumpily, shaking snow out of my feathers onto her floor. Oops. Sorry.

"Don't worry about it," she answered cheerfully. "Close your eyes."

Huh?

"I said, close your eyes. Hawks have eyelids, right?"

I wasn't sure if they were called eyelids in hawk anatomy, but I closed them anyway.

I heard a drawer being opened and shut. "I didn't wrap it," Rachel said. "I know you might rip it apart with your beak."

Oh no. She had gotten me a gift. And I hadn't gotten her anything. What was I going to do, catch a mouse for her?

"Well, open your eyes," she said impatiently.

I did, and if hawks could cry, I would have.

It was a picture frame, in the shape of a heart. Decorating it were simple symbols: a sun, a crescent moon, a clover, a star, even a smiley face. The background behind those symbols was red, almost the color of my tail feathers. It was beautiful.

But the picture inside it brought the tears, or something like them, to my eyes. Cut like a heart to fit into the frame was a picture of me and Rachel. Standing together. Smiling.

I knew no such picture had been taken. Rachel was beaming, looking so gorgeous. I was even smiling a little. A sad smile, but a simple nonetheless. But how had this picture been taken?

"It took Marco forever to find one of you," Rachel interrupted my thoughts. She was looked at me strangely ... like she was awaiting my approval. "He made the picture for me, using some sort of cropping and editing computer program. But I made the frame." She bit her lip, and in that moment, she looked like a small little girl, not the tough brave woman I knew so well. "Do you like it?"

I love it, Rachel. In my thoughts was so much emotion, emotion that I never could have conveyed in words. And I love you.

She hugged me then, and my hawk brain didn't seem to notice. I lived my wings as best I could and touched her with them.

"I love you too, Tobias," Rachel whispered. "Merry Christmas."

Merry Christmas, Rachel, I answered, and meant it.