Anonymous asked: Why the hell did Rachel have a picture of Tobias? ( Also, Tobias??? Just.. Tobias??? Tring to make the best out of a bad situation Tobias???? Coming into this I thought Marco was going to be a favourite but my heart is breaking for this boy.(halfway (?) through Book 3)
Right, so, welcome to my kingdom of fairly elaborate headcanons about Rachel’s very quiet, mostly ignored crush on the shiest, most anxious bully target in school. She never talks about it to anyone, really. Not even Cassie knows. The laws of middle school are pretty absolute, and Rachel runs in radically different circles from soft-spoken Tobias, new kid Tobias, everyone-knows-his-uncle-hates-him Tobias. Shows-up-at-school-for-breakfast-with-ill-fitting-clothes-and-bruises-from-bullies Tobias.
Rachel’s a tough kid, but even she’s not sure if she’s tough enough for that.
All the same, though, she drops a whisper in Jake’s ear–Big Jake, her gentle giant of a cousin–and suddenly the bullies start to back off, under threat of seeing Jake’s easygoing smile appear over Tobias’ shoulder with a “Hey, guys. What are we talking about?”
Tobias never knows. Rachel never tells him.
That’s not the point, though. By the time Rachel decides that fuck everyone, she’s so fucking over this, if she wants to go hold some dumb skinny dork’s hand she’s gonna do it and fuck the haters–well, they walk home through a construction site. She does hold Tobias’ hand, but it’s because he’s crying so hard he’s shaking trying to be silent, and the Andalite, the dying Prince Elfangor, is screaming in their heads and God, what else can she do except hold onto Tobias and pray?
The next day, Rachel looks across the circle of her friends and meets Tobias’ eyes, soft and light brown flecked with gold in the sunlight. She’s never been close enough to see the glints of precious metal there. His jaw is set hard, no trace of his nervous smile, and he’s standing up straight for the first tine in her memory and the two of them are immediately, viscerally agreed. They are going to war. The others can stay or go, but Rachel and Tobias. They are doing this, because this is what they are. Who they are.
They go to war and it’s worse than anything Rachel’s ever lived except for how it’s not and the next day Tobias….
Tobias isn’t at school. He’s invisible. He blends in with the crowd. That’s what Cassie tells her, tries to reassure her. They might have just not noticed him.
Rachel would have noticed him, she thinks.
So.
The point is.
When she finds out that those soft gold-brown eyes and that nervous smile and those bony stubborn shoulders are gone for good, Rachel goes and finds the one place that might have a picture of Tobias. He drew, you know, pretty well, and she goes to the art teacher and lies her ass off about looking for pictures of the after-school art club. (She knows that Tobias was at home to sleep, almost nothing else. Everyone knew.) The art teacher is an easy mark. Rachel is a sweet kid, a top student, a good girl. Rachel walks away with a small collection of photos, and finds one that’s mostly Tobias, looking shyly up at the camera that had interrupted his work. Brown eyes flecked with gold, a nervous smile. She can’t stand the thought of forgetting what he looks like.
What he looked like.
She keeps the photograph.
That or after she learned more about his living situation after he was a hawk she subtly found out his old address and stormed over to beat the living shit out of his uncle. She snagged the photo from his possessions on the way out.
