Only the Good Die Young

[Suji]

Suji went from looking remotely hopeful to looking exhausted and on death's door once again. Of course he wasn't here. Somehow it didn't really seem like Drake, anyway. Something was a little off. Her brain couldn't perfectly recreate him. She was sure that it'd taken plenty of liberties with Cassie and Toby too.

"I'm sorry I left you," Suji said, voice thick. "I- I had to go back for Fin. It was stupid. But I had to." Suji's hands clenched weakly into fists. "I don't even know where he is," she said softly. "I don't know if I'm dead yet or not. I guess it hurts too much for me to be dead. My whole body feels like it's being crushed and stretched at the same time."

Suji pulled her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them. If this was an illusion, then fine. Better to spent moments like this. If her mind was spitting out anything it could to try to make the process smoother, she'd take it. She'd take talking to hallucination-Drake over hallucination-Cassie anyday.

"I just got sick. After escaping the plague of the millenia, I got the flu or something." She smirked wryly, though it was distorted by pain. "Did you... did you guys make it? Oh. I guess you wouldn't... oh..."

Suji pinched the bridge of her nose, clenching her entire body tight for a moment, the mental exertion of trying to sort the situation out painful.

[gabriel]

Fin tried to look understanding. He wasn't used to having people open up to him. The only one who had shown him anything other than the surface layer of themselves was Aida and even with her he felt like he had never seen her as vulnerable as Suji was now. He was past being uncomfortable, he was even past being lost. He was just determined to keep going and he was hoping like hell that somehow he would stumble upon the right thing to say or do to get her to take the Tylenol.

He tried to figure out what exactly Suji needed to hear to make her want to keep living. He was so afraid of just saying the wrong thing. Already he'd felt like he'd said the wrong thing when he had told her Drake wasn't really here. But he couldn't lie about something like that. He could pretend to be a hallucinated Drake but he couldn't pretend to be the real Drake, not with someone who knew him better than Fin did. If he had said yes he would have found himself in a lot more trouble than he was in now. He just hoped he hadn't blown it.

Come on Fin, you can do this. He had literally seen Suji's thoughts. He should know what was going on in her head but he didn't, not completely. She blamed herself for Dallas somehow. And she blamed herself for leaving Drake and the others behind. And yet, she was also blaming herself for leaving Fin behind. The fact that she had gone back for him didn't seem to make the leaving part any better.

He had once thought that things were simple for people like Suji. They saw the world in black and white, right and wrong. He had personally thought it was an illusion but he had believed he'd understood them. But now he wasn't so sure. If Suji had believed coming back for him was the right thing to do then why did she feel guilty about leaving Drake and the others behind? She obviously couldn't have come back for Fin and gone with them. No one could be in two places at once (except for Drake right now). So it obviously wasn't that clear cut. Coming back for him and been both the right and the wrong thing to do. And staying with the others would have been both the right and the wrong thing to do. Leaving him in the first place was both the right and the wrong thing to do. No wonder she was all messed up. This was infinitely more confusing and difficult to figure out than any math or science topic he'd ever taught himself. He would much rather be working on equations than sitting here right now.

So what to say to a person who was convinced every decision they'd made was the wrong one even though they had tried to make the right one each time? 'It's not your fault?' It would have worked for Fin but he had a feeling it wouldn't cut it with Suji. 'You can't do everything?' Nope.

"It's ok that you left," he said slowly. "I understand why you did it. I understand why you left Fin behind and why you had to go back for him. I get it. I don't know if it was right or wrong or anything. Maybe there's no such thing but I know why you did it." He shrugged. In the end he didn't know what to say to make it alright. He couldn't pass judgement on her actions. He couldn't even begin to figure that out. All he could say was that he understood. And what was that worth?

Maybe a lot. Wasn't everyone looking for someone who would just understand them? Everyone just wandered around this world wanting to be seen by someone. Seen and valued for what and who they were. Fin knew that. He'd played off it enough times to know that it was just a basic human desire. If you could convince someone that you saw them...they'd love you. But if you were lying people could always tell. You could fool them for a while but eventually they'd figure it out. And when they did it was worse than if you were a stranger. At least the stranger had never pretended to care.

Fin didn't know if telling Suji he understood would help or not. It probably wouldn't change a damn thing. But at least he meant it.

He looked down at his hand and then held out the Tylenol to her. "I thought you could use this. Since you're sick and all." He hoped she would take it. He was at his wits end about what to do and what to say.

[Suji]

Suji watched Drake. Tears welled in her eyes, or at least they seemed to glimmer wetly for a moment. She was too exhausted to cry, couldn't break down. Even when she was alone, she couldn't lower that armor. She'd failed. Hadn't she? She hadn't taken Fin back. She didn't deserve to sit her and cry about her situation.

Weakly, she took the Tylenol from his hand. God, it felt so real. It was dry, warm, the fingers long. Shakily, she tore open the packet. It took a couple tries before she got it all the way open, and she dropped one of the two pills in it a couple times. Eventually she got them both in her mouth, dry swallowing them down painfully.

"I don't think you do understand," Suji said, though it wasn't really accusatory, just tired. "I don't even understand. Morality is... I'm not a good person. I try... I've tried... to do help the most people, but you'd... you'd be surprised how much it kills your soul, even when you're trying to save others. I'm not even religious," she mumbled.

Then something horrible dawned on her. She was paralyzed with fear for a moment, then she looked up at him. "Fin. I... I killed someone to get to him. The Shepherd, you know, Jack. I did something terrible." Suji rubbed her eyes, and didn't stop. "I gave him the morphing power. That alone -- that alone was a risk that was at least equal to the risk that leaving Fin behind posed. I gave him the morphing power and spilled some of my own blood and... and... I took him as a host. I used his body as a shell. Just a tool. I'm as bad as any Controller."

Suji let out a dry heave, feeling the pills rise in her gorge. She rubbed her throat, physically massaging them back down. If death was knocking, she might as well confess her sins while she could.

"And now..." She grabbed handfuls of her hair. "Now I'm not even sure if I did save Fin. Maybe I just think I did. Maybe that's all been a hallucination. For all I know I'm rotting in a Yeerk cell, dying some long, viral hallucination before my brain deteriorates."

[gabriel]

Right now would be a really good time to be a priest or even slightly religious. Morality, souls, right, wrong. It was like some evil, cosmic teacher had decided to have a pop quiz that Fin had failed to study for. What the hell was the right answer? He hated that there was no certain answer. None of this was very logical.

"Suji, please listen to me," he said grabbing one of her hands to get her to pay attention. "I don't know what to say to you to make any of this better. I don't have any of the answers and I wish I did because it's killing me to see you this way. You're beating yourself up and punishing yourself and I don't understand why. You're the best person I know."

Fin had forgotten he was supposed to be playing a part. He wasn't sure what Drake would have said but he'd stopped trying to figure it out. He doubted even Drake would have the right answers in this situation. He was just hoping Fin was enough. "I understand why you feel you failed. You couldn't save m-you couldn't save Fin the first time. And going back for him meant betraying the trust the others put in you as a leader. Give me a little credit for even figuring out that much," he said, attempting to inject a little humor into the situation.

"But I don't understand why you're focusing on that. I mean, like, why don't you see the other stuff too. You did come back...go back. You went back for Fin because you thought it was the right thing to do. There are some people out there who wouldn't know what the right thing was if it was staring them in the face. And even when they do, how many of them actually follow through? Like..." he was struggling to put thoughts into words and he was hoping that he would never have to have a conversation like this again. "You try. I guess. Yeah, you try. Other people don't even try but you try so hard that it hurts you to fail. And that's just amazing to me. I don't know anyone who cares so much about doing the right thing."

He'd exhausted himself as far as expressing deep emotions went. He let go of her hand and looked down at it, seeing Drake's hand instead of his own. She was worried that she was just like the yeerks for using Jack's body. What did that make him? Was this why morphing humans was a no-no by most people's standards? Fin had never really seen the problem with it before, mostly because he wasn't like Suji. He didn't go around wondering what was right and what was wrong and this was the first time he was actually ashamed of that. "At least you try," he said quietly. "I don't-" he stopped. He'd let the confessional atmosphere lull him into forgetting the part he was playing. He suddenly realized Suji couldn't know that this had been him.

"If you're hallucinating right now what does it matter? In the reality you lived in, you tried to do the right thing, you've always tried to do the right thing. If there is any sort of God that is what they'll see. At least, I think that's what they should see. It is a hell of a lot more than what other people have done."

[Suji]

Suji frowned at him for a moment, eyes narrowing. This didn't sound like Drake. Drake always seemed... more aloof. Not that she minded. If her mind wanted a Drake that would hold her hand and tell her it was okay, cut her some slack, then she wasn't going to argue. She tried her best to focus on him, though it was hard.

Shouldn't he disappear if I focus too much? Oh well, he didn't. And still, his hand felt so real again.

Though she wasn't one for pep-talks, Suji did feel somewhat pacified. Bemoaning how she failed would just seem like she was fishing for reassurance anyway, and that wasn't how she wanted to spend her last hours.

"Thanks, Drake." Suji yawned. Her headache hadn't subsided, but at least exhaustion was wrapping is fingers back around her eyes, pulling down the lids. "Maybe you're right. I just... I hate when things are out of my control. You can only do so much, and it's always the couple things out of reach that destroy everything."

Suji bit her bottom lip. "I'm scared that when it's all tallied up, the good things I've done don't outweigh -- and certainly don't justify -- the bad things. I've done a lot of bad things. I don't know if doing bad things in the name of good makes it any better. The worst villains do that, don't they?" She offered him a dry smile, though her brow was creased with worry lines.

Leaning back again, she let out a sigh. "I do try though, you're right about that. Or I tried. Close enough to be using past tense?" She smirked, rubbed her thumb on his hand as it held hers. "Will... will you stay for a little while?" She didn't look at him as she said it, staring at her lap.

[gabriel]

"Of course Suj," he answered. What else was he supposed to say? No I have to go now. I'm worried about my morphing time running out or you figuring out I'm not who I say I am. He sat with her until she fell asleep, felling very much like he was a fraud. He wasn't supposed to be the one sitting here. It wasn't his place.

But at least he had accomplished what he'd set out to do. She'd taken the medicine. However, she seemed convinced it wouldn't work and that was making Fin believe it too. What if she needed more? Or what if the Tylenol he'd gotten was expired. It wasn't like the yeerks were bothering to keep up the production of human medicine. This whole situation was just bad in general. They were in a cave in the middle of nowhere and one of them was sick. What if someone found them? Could he fight them off? He didn't think so. He'd only ever been in one fight and he'd gotten cut in half. He just didn't have a power morph suitable for the job.

So when she was asleep Fin quietly got up and crept out of the cave. He quickly demorphed, glad to feel that he still could.



He leaned against a rock, exhausted. The sun was starting to set and the reddish golden light bounced off the ground beneath them and seemed to shine right into Fin's eyes. He closed his eyes and saw fire. He jeerked off the wall, his breathing ragged as he looked around.

He was fine. He was safe. For a moment he'd seen Dallas go up in flames again but it was just a trick of the light. "Great, now both of us are having hallucinations," he muttered but then had to start laughing. He'd been having hallucinations long before Suji had ever seen her first ghost.

He stopped laughing when the sound started to hold more insanity than amusement. He crouched down and put his head in his hands. This had been the most emotionally taxing day of his life and it wasn't even over.

He started to shrink, summoning the image of a bat. The morph was slow and he didn't try to rush it. He just had to get there, who cares how long it took him. He even stopped halfway through when he looked like some weird, vampire creature. He had fangs and large, furry ears. There was pinkish skin stretched tight between his arms and his torso and his fingers were about double the length they normally were, while his feet had hardly changed at all. He took as deep of a breath as he could through his nose and kept going.

When he'd finally finished the morph Fin launched off the rocks and headed back towards Kingman. He was glad that the exhaustion did not carry over to this animal form. He'd be tired when he became Fin again but he was alright for right now.

He made Kingman in much better time than he had before since he knew the route and he was using the bat instead of the falcon. Still, by the time he landed in a road side restaurant parking lot it was dark outside. That was all the better for him. He could use darkness.

Fin demorphed and felt that exhaustion he'd been dreading. Before it could fully take hold he was into his next morph. He shrunk into his cat form and trotted around to the back of the mini truck he'd landed next to. He wished he had thought to land in the truck but he wasn't at his best. So instead he had to jump up to the rim of the truck's bed and drop down into it. That was fine. The cat had major upz.

He trotted over to the window that led into the back seat of the mini truck and jumped through. He'd flown around a bit before finding a car that had been left a window open enough for one of his morphs to fit through. Even his bat could have fit through here if he'd pulled his wings in at the right time but he hadn't wanted to risk that timing in the state he was in.

He demorphed once he was inside and climbed into the front seat. "Thank you brain. Thank you parents for giving me the brain," he said as he removed the panels around the ignition tumbler aka the place where the key fit in. When it was off he squinted in the dim light and then turned and began looking through the glove compartment for something he could turn into his key. He was hoping for a screw driver but he ended up with a fork. A dirty, used fork. But it was metal and it was tough enough to work so he wasn't about to complain about the car owner's bad hygiene.

He stuck the end of the fork into ignition switch and turned. The truck came to life and Fin leaned back and buckled his seat belt. He turned the lights on and and carefully backed out of the parking lot, his bare feet having a bit of trouble controlling the peddles (not to mention touching the garbage on the floor of the truck).

When he got to the corner he was torn as to which direction to turn. The truck didn't have much gas in it. The owners had probably planned on filling up before they left town. He should probably do the same but did he want to risk trying to fool Chelsea a second time? Not really. Besides, he was tired of pretending to be someone else. He'd had enough of it for a lifetime today.

He turned and headed back down route 93. He kept glancing south and finally pulled over when he saw the hills they were hiding out in. He turned the car off, more afraid of running out of gas than of not being able to turn it back on, and hopped out. He left the door open slightly. Hopefully if anyone drove by they wouldn't realize it was open. Then again, he hadn't seen much traffic on this road.

Fin thought about morphing again but even the thought made him feel exhausted. Besides, he'd walked this distance as a human before while helping Suji so he could do it again.

He trotted back towards the rocks and climbed up, getting lost yet again. He had only been this way as a human once and it hadn't been in the dark. But he found the cave eventually and he walked in, glad to see that Suji was still asleep. He walked over to her and felt her forehead. It felt like her fever may have broken but he wasn't sure.

"Suji," he said, shaking her shoulder gently. "I got another car. Do you think you can make it to the road?"

[Suji]

Suji slowly came to consciousness. Fin again? Her eyes felt like they were glued together she was so tired. She didn't bother responding. Her throat felt horrible. The lack of water and the talking to herself last night made it impossible to speak without a lot of pain. After a moment of just staring blankly at Fin, she stirred to move.

She'd never felt so physically weak in her life. She couldn't push her body up. But she had to try. Drake had said that, right? Her vision of Drake? She tried. And hallucination or not, she was delivering Fin to the Vegas faction. Or at this point, the hallucination would be dragging her there. Her dragging herself? Who knew.

Or maybe Fin really was here. Stranger things had happened. It was all Suji could to to help Fin drag her to the car. She pulled herself up onto the passenger seat, and handed him the crumpled, stained map. With a shaking finger she pointed to where the airbase would be. Then, she folded into the seat, panting.

[gabriel]

Fin reached over Suji and buckled her in. If they had another car accident he didn't want her to go flying through the windshield. It would be awfully stupid to survive the bombing of Dallas as well as everything else just to die in a car accident.

He buckled himself in too and then looked both ways on the road before doing a U-turn. He headed back the way they'd come, driving through Kingman as fast as he dared and following the signs for route 93. On his way through he actually saw a sign for route 66 and had a moment to think, 'oh cool' before blasting past it and out of the city, going northwest.

The road was gratefully empty. They only passed a car once or twice and they were all going the other way. Fin kept checking the dashboard and the gas meter, getting more and more nervous as it steadily dropped. He didn't know how he was going to get them to Vegas if he didn't have a car. Probably try to steal another one but it would get more and more dangerous each time if there was someone out their reporting the thefts. Not to mention Suji was getting weaker. She was sleeping now and the fever did seem to have broken but she needed water and rest and a bunch of other things he couldn't supply no matter who he pretended to be so he floored it when no one was around and kept driving.

About an hour and a half into their trip Fin encountered the first problem. But for a first problem it was an awfully big one. Route 93 went over the Hoover Dam, a national landmark Fin had never seen. And it looked like he never would see it. The dam was gone.

He slowly came to a stop behind a line of other cars and stared at the destruction. There wasn't pieces of twisted metal around but it was obvious that something had been destroyed. It was like going to Ground Zero in New York. There was a big hole where something had been before and just enough debris to let you get a hint of what was supposed to be there. Not to mention the place was lit up like a Christmas tree.

Fin saw bug fighters doing low passes over the Colorado River, search light scanning the surrounding area. There were guard towers on the side of the road and hork bajir stationed at some sort of toll booth ahead.

He heard a honk behind him and he moved the car forward slightly in line, before coming to a stop again. He didn't know how traffic was getting over the river if the dam was gone but the line was moving somewhere. He looked down at the gas meter. They were almost out now and this start-stop driving was not going to help them in the least.

He moved forward a bit more as the line moved and looked over at Suji. He was hoping they weren't inspecting the cars. He didn't want to explain why she looked so sick or why he was in spandex.

Eventually he made it to the front of the line and a bored guard briefly looked at him. "Designation?" he asked blandly, his eye lids at half mast the whole time.

"Liamott 099," Fin answered easily. He'd already decided he might as well stick with what had worked before. And at least he knew Liam was dead and wouldn't be making any claims to his own identification. In fact, both Liam and Jack were dead apparently. He still didn't completely understand what Suji had been talking about but that last fact seemed pretty clear.

The guard waved him through and Fin finally got to see what was taking them across the river. And he wished he hadn't. There was nothing taking them across the river. That was what it looked like anyway. There was some sort of tunnel looking thing set up on this side and cars entered it and suddenly they were flying through the air to meet up with a similar tunnel shape on the other side. It was like they were being blown across.

Fin balked a little at driving the truck into thin air but the asshole behind him honked again and Fin put his foot on the gas pedal. He eased the car into the tunnel, hoping it was impossible to overshoot.

A sign above his head lit up bright green but it was in a language he didn't understand. He really hoped that whatever it had been trying to tell him wasn't that important. Then he was off. He held onto to the wheel for dear life and tried not to look at all the nothingness below his tires. All he could think about was how horrified his mother would be. She hated driving on the outside lane of bridges because she was afraid of heights. He was pretty sure she'd have a heart attack if she had to do this.

The truck came in for a smooth landing on the other side of the river and Fin was all too happy to pull out of the tunnel and keep driving. He followed the signs to Vegas and began trying to compare what he was seeing to the map Suji had handed him. She had pointed to some place on the northeast side of the city but as far as he could tell this road would take them in through the south. He'd have to drive through the whole city to get where they were supposed to be going and he would probably run into traffic there. Not to mention it didn't seem like a good idea to drive a large truck right up to an animorphs base.

Fin decided to take an alternative route. He took the next right and turned onto Lakeshore Drive. The road was aptly named. It followed Lake Mead's coast all the way north, curving a little to the west to avoid the outshoots of the lake.

By the time Fin got to the fork where Lakeshore Drive turned into Lake Mead Parkway and Northshore Road, they were almost out of gas. They were right outside the city. He could see it's lights ahead of him. He could try to drive in and find a gas station and hope he could finangle more gas but, as he'd decided every time that night when faced with a similar choice, he decided it was too risky. They were still on the south side of the city so he took the right and turned onto Northshore Road.

About ten minutes later right after he'd made the turn onto Lake Mead Boulevard he heard the sound he didn't want to hear. The car was running out of gas and it was slowing down. It simply didn't have what it needed to continue. He wasn't surprised really. He'd been running on fumes for the past half hour since leaving what was left of the Dam behind.

Fin pulled over and got out of the car and looked around. They were somewhere in the middle of the desert but the city was as bright as ever to his left. He was pretty sure they were near the spot Suji had pointed out to him so all he really had to do was keep the lights of the city on his left and walk north. But was he going alone?

It probably made more sense. He could make better time on his own. He couldn't be more than ten minutes away, less if he flew. He could go there, get help, and come back. But that wasn't what he was going to do. He had come this far and it seemed stupid to leave Suji behind when their goal was in sight. He was determined to get her home and he actually had a way to do it.

He walked around to Suji's side of the truck and opened the cab. She didn't even notice, she was too far gone already. He unbuckled her seat belt and then closed his eyes. He swore to himself this was the last time he was going to do this and he could only hope that Andre wouldn't mind. He didn't think so, it was for a good cause after all.



Fin put one arm beneath Suji's knees and the other behind her shoulders and picked her up. She weighed almost nothing and he decided to think that was because Andre was so strong, not because she'd lost weight. Suji's head rested against his shoulder and Fin carefully pulled her out of the car, careful not to hit her head on the roof as he did so. He took a deep breath and then turned north and began walking.

He had somehow thought morphing Andre would make him super man but even though he was much stronger he wasn't invincible. A couple hundred yards down the road his bare feet felt very raw and there was a slight burn in his shoulders and arms. He wasn't sure how long Andre could carry someone but Fin was determined that the answer would be long enough.

He finally saw the darkened hulk of the base's buildings ahead of him and had to stop himself from breaking out into a run. He did let out an excited yell however and he didn't even mind that it came out in a deep voice that was not his own. "We made it! Suji, wake up, we made it," Fin said excitedly as he approached the base.