chapters:
1. steering you homeOne minute he was pacing the floor of the lab, bright cracked cement under his feet and that damn buzzing noise in his head as he tried to sort through dozens of results a second. Normal, normal, NORMAL. All a lie. His body was betraying him, telling him everything was fine when at any second he could find himself--
Lying on that same floor, staring up at the lofty struts running power and equipment to every part of the building. With a blasting cannon right next to him. Ziggy was giving him too much space and Scott looked like he was about to pounce. Summer's voice, the first one he heard, saying, "The virus has fallen back to its original growth rate!"
Well, fuck. Now he was supposed to be happy that he was only losing control of himself as quickly as he had been before. Charming.
"I'm getting really sick of asking this," Dillon gritted, shoving himself up. Scott was sizing him up. Ziggy was trying to nonchalantly sidle toward the cannon, probably to pick it up and get it out of the way. Summer seemed to be the one in the know, so he directed the question at her. "What happened?"
Flynn was right behind her, which definitely didn't bode well. Summer could kick his butt when he wasn't trying, so if Flynn thought she needed backup then he must have been trying. She was shaking her head, opening her mouth and probably--annoyingly--about to say she didn't know.
"What just happened," a familiar voice cut in, "is that I entered the base code for the Venjix virus."
She was standing up behind her computer screens, face just visible over the forward monitor. She looked defeated but not physically hurt. The team would have protected her at all costs.
The rest of the team. Everyone but him. Because he was the one they had to protect her from.
"I know it," she was saying, "because I'm the one who wrote it."
Holy shit. His brain finally stopped analyzing and started synthesizing: he had no idea what she had done, but he knew what she was saying. She was telling them, all of them, that she'd created the thing that took over the world.
"I'm the one who released it. Everything that's happened--everything you've been through--it's all my fault."
He'd given it some thought. She'd trained them all to stay calm, so he figured any retribution on their part would be calculated. She shouldn't be in immediate danger. But she cared what they thought, whether she admitted it or not, so he'd tried to project likely reactions and most effective counter-arguments.
Ziggy wouldn't believe it, not at first. Then he would assume it was an accident and nothing they could say would ever dissuade him. There was no threat from that corner.
Flynn would accept it, because redemption was part of the way he looked at the world. Bad guys did bad things, and if someone was doing good things then they obviously weren't bad. Flynn might even feel sorry for her, carrying the kind of guilt she did.
Which left Summer and Scott. They had both lost more on the way to Corinth than they had found once they got there, and their moralities were more ambiguous. It was entirely possible that either one of them might decide the consequences of the Venjix virus outweighed any effort made to stop it.
"Did you mean it?" Ziggy asked at last.
She gave him a look like she didn't even understand the question. "Mean what?"
"To release a virus that would destroy the world," he said.
"No, of course not." She didn't even sound indignant about it. She sounded like she didn't care, like it didn't matter. Like her intent was immaterial.
"Well, there you go then," Ziggy said. "It was an accident. You're trying to fix it. We're on your side, Dr. K. End of story."
"Okay, wait a second." Scott held up a hand, giving his head a shake like he hadn't really heard any of it the first time. "Did you just say you wrote the Venjix base code?"
"Aye, well, it sort of makes sense," Flynn said carefully. "I mean, our technology isn't that far removed from theirs, is it."
Carefully, Dillon noted, but not slowly.
Flynn had already known.
Summer looked confused, but Dillon knew better than to think she wasn't noting everyone else's reactions just as carefully as he was. "I thought you wanted to stop Venjix."
"Of course I want to stop Venjix," she said sharply. "Venjix is my fault; I have to stop it. There's no alternative."
Summer turned on Dillon. "You knew."
He raised his eyebrows. Even for her, that had been quick. "Why do you say that?"
"Because you're still here," Scott said wryly.
They were all staring at him now, and Dillon shrugged. "We've all done things we're not proud of. The only question is whether we're capable of doing more."
It made Scott pause, but Summer ignored him to frown at Ziggy. "Did you know?"
"Uh, no?" Ziggy held up his hands, glancing sideways at Dillon. "I mean, not until now. But it's kind of a good thing, right? If she created it, you gotta figure she's our best chance of stopping it."
No one could change the past. Ziggy didn't even try. He didn't even factor the past into his decisions. Someone created Venjix and Ziggy didn't stop to think, that's a dangerous person. He just stood up next to them and tried to beat it.
Like leaping over the side of a building, Dillon thought with sudden icy clarity. Someone fell, and he didn't think, gee, what are the odds that them falling means I could fall too? He just dove after them.
And that was how Ziggy was going to get himself killed.
It actually made perfect sense, up until the point where he slammed the back of his car closed and swung into the driver's seat. That was when he saw the tape on his steering wheel. Electrical tape, indented by pen, almost unreadable in the darkened garage. He touched it and the letters took shape under his fingers.
I'm sorry, the tape said. K.
He slammed his fist into the horn without thinking. Well, he did think. He thought too fast for the action to make any sense, and he knew perfectly well why he did it. For the same reason Ziggy was the first one out of his room at the sound of the horn. For the same reason Summer was the second. For the same reason Scott hadn't slept in his car tonight, and the lights didn't come up while the screens stayed black.
He couldn't leave them and they couldn't stop him.
"God damn it," Dillon muttered, not moving from his car.
"Look, man, if you're havin' some sort of crisis, we're glad to help you out," Flynn called down over the railing. "But if you're just venting your frustration, do you think you could do it a bit quieter? Some of us are trying to sleep."
"Flynn," Summer hissed, in a way that wasn't at all subtle given she was standing on her own balcony on the other side of the garage. "Cut it out."
"Dillon?" Scott called, sounding suspiciously awake. "You all right?"
He stared through the windshield at the only transparent screen in the garage. The one in the briefing room, across from the kitchen, angled and barely visible from where he was now. The one that looked in on the control room. Dark, but with a funny reflection, and he couldn't see through it but he knew what the light meant when it looked like that.
She was watching him. She'd been expecting him to make a run for it. She hadn't told anyone--or if she had, they hadn't believed her. He didn't know which one made him angrier. And she was just...
She wasn't scared of him; he knew that from long and often painful experience.
She didn't think she deserved his loyalty.
He shoved the door open and got out. "I'm fine," he growled, loud enough to be heard from above. "Go back to sleep."
That probably didn't reassure any of them, but he only heard one set of footsteps on the stairs. He continued on toward the training room, ignoring it. He made an "I see you" gesture at the screen as he passed, even though he didn't, and the doors slid open for his approach.
The door to the control room was already open. There was no dedicated illumination in there, either, but he could see the glow of her pajamas from the status lights on the board. She'd turned her chair to face the door. Waiting for him.
Dillon stopped in the doorway, leaning against it. He couldn't make out her face. He braced his forehead against the door, wondering when the fuck he'd started to believe. To believe that she really could do anything, that he couldn't kill her, that being here was worth the risk if he was wrong.
"I meant it." Her voice drifted to him in the quiet.
"I'll kill you," he mumbled.
Her voice didn't change. "You can try."
His lips quirked. He heard her move, pajamas slippery on the chair, bare feet making one false start on the floor before they were muffled by fuzzy slippers. She didn't have far to go: two padded steps, and then he felt her hand on his arm.
Gentle. Astonishing. She didn't touch people... not first. Sometimes not ever.
But she had touched him.
"Hey," Ziggy's voice called, wary and uncertain in the dark. Coming from the doorway of the training room. "Everything okay in here? I mean, Dillon doesn't usually talk when he's possessed, and Summer says she's sure that chip thing can't affect him anymore, but... well, we've said that before, right?"
She lifted her voice. "We're fine, Ziggy. Come in."
Steps tracked across the floor, promising rescue if he lost it, and Dillon finally gave in. He pulled her into a rough hug. She stiffened momentarily, fingers tightening on his arm, her other hand pressed to his chest--then she relaxed. "You leaving doesn't help us," she murmured, head resting against his shoulder.
"Me leaving doesn't hurt you," he corrected.
"Um, hi," Ziggy said. "So... I'm guessing you're good?"
Dillon didn't realize he didn't mean it literally until he'd already answered, "Yeah."
"No," she said. "We need you."
There was a pause, and then Ziggy said, "Really?"
"I'm not sure I can make him stay," she said. Her voice sounded almost normal, except that it was muffled by his shirt. "I need you."
It was impossible to tell which of them she was talking to, and Dillon's arms tightened around her.
"A wise person once told me," Ziggy said thoughtfully, "that you can't make anyone stay. All you can do is let them know that you really want them to."
Dillon closed his eyes, but he still heard her ask, "How do I do that?"
Despite the smile in his voice, Ziggy sounded serious when he said, "I think if you ask Dillon, you'll find you're doing pretty well."
"Okay, shut up," Dillon muttered, letting go with one hand to clamp down on Ziggy's shoulder. Then he briefly thought better of it. "Did you know about the tape?"
"Are you kidding?" Ziggy scoffed. "I put a letter in the glovebox."
Dillon tightened his grip, ignoring a protest from the slight figure between them as he pulled both of them close. He didn't say anything. He figured he probably didn't have to.
He knew he'd screwed up. And he'd meant to apologize, he really had, except that at first he hadn't realized how bad it was and by the time he got it they were in a van 200 kilometers away and she still wasn't speaking to him. She was speaking to Dillon, though--which he guessed was fair--and that's how he figured it out.
Ziggy hadn't thought it was that big a deal. So he'd slipped up and used her real name. Once. One time, so what? Well, maybe a couple of times, but all at once, anyway. Dillon had said it right in front of him; was he supposed to pretend not to hear?
Okay, not said it, exactly.
She liked french fries. He liked mini golf. They'd managed to combine activities in a way that involved Dillon calling advice to him from the bench at the front of the windmill course: Ziggy was squinting down the green, and Dillon was playing with her lunch. Ziggy didn't know how much until he finally sunk the ball on his fifteenth stroke.
Walking back to them, he found the name "Kaia" spelled out in little french fry pieces across her tray. Dillon was idly fashioning an arrow out of the remaining fries. She bumped the tray as soon as he sat down, scattering the letters out of existence, and the way Dillon raised his eyebrow told Ziggy that he hadn't expected that either.
"Kaia, huh?" Ziggy blurted out. "That's pretty. Is that what the 'K' stands for? I like it; you should use it."
"No," she said shortly. "Also, you are significantly over par."
He exchanged glances with Dillon--who, as usual, only looked amused. "No, you shouldn't use it?" he pressed, to see if Dillon would smile. "Why not? Can I use it? Come on, I can call you Kaia, right?"
"No," she snapped. "What part of my answer was unclear?"
Oops.
So that marked one more time he'd pissed her off by paying too much attention to Dillon, which he so hadn't expected when he'd asked to be involved in this. In spite of everything, he just didn't think of her as the dangerous one. And that was why the rest of the team would never guess: she was always mad at him for something, lately.
Maybe it had been a bad idea, Ziggy thought, staring up at the roof of the van. The whole asking thing. Not that he would have done it without asking, since Dillon's feelings were pretty clear... but maybe he shouldn't have done it at all. Maybe he shouldn't have tried to shove his way in.
Of course, lying on the floor in a tangle of three other people, five sleeping bags, and an indeterminate number of makeshift pillows, he had to admit that maintaining a respectful distance wasn't something he did. That wasn't how he worked. He wasn't like Dillon, sitting up in the front passenger seat while his teammates slept, staring through the windshield at the night.
Talking idly to a girlfriend who was more comfortable on a screen than she was in person. Who showed about as much emotion as he did, at the end of the day. Who didn't even use a real name.
"I realize this is going to sound kind of hypocritical," Dillon muttered, his voice barely loud enough to hear over the background hum of equipment in an enclosed space. "But are you still obsessing over that chip?"
Her reply was even softer. Dillon must have turned the output down to keep the rest of them from waking up. "Asking me about it only reminds me how much I don't know," she said.
It was impossible to read her tone at that volume, but Dillon changed the subject and Ziggy was suddenly that much more awake. "So why are you mad at Ziggy?"
There was a long pause. He was sure he hadn't drifted off. Flynn was right there, breathing slow with sleep, and Scott was finally not kicking him, but their voices seemed much farther away when it occurred to him that she was talking again.
"...makes me uncomfortable," her voice said, and maybe he was dreaming, because that didn't sound like anything Dr. K would say. "I don't know what he knows."
Dillon's voice sounded much louder by comparison, but it didn't make any more sense. "You don't know how much he knows," he murmured, "or you think he knows things you don't?"
There was another pause before Dillon's voice added, "'Cause either way, join the club."
Dillon had told her, he thought with a sudden burst of clarity. About the list. The one Ziggy had made about her and then promptly "forgot," the one that made Dillon's eyes soften when it included her favorite color like it was just as important as the names of her labs and think tanks and degrees.
"I'll tell him," Dillon was saying, and he'd missed something in the drowsiness of the moment. Lots of moments. Seriously, Dillon and Dr. K were talking on the phone, in the middle of the night, over a channel that probably required military authorization just to exist. And they were talking about him.
He meant to keep listening, but the next time he opened his eyes their voices were silent and the muted glow from the screen up front was gone.
He hadn't slept in what felt like days, and he knew when he was pushing it. So before any of his critical systems started compromising the less critical ones just to keep functioning, he laid down and tried to turn off his brain. Not literally. Just enough that he wouldn't dream.
For a long time he had welcomed the dreams, nightmarish though they seemed, as his only connection to the past. Now he didn't know what was real and what wasn't, and he'd rather not walk into another Venjix trap. The fear had kept him from sleeping this long... but now it seemed like he didn't have a choice.
Because he couldn't do it. It wasn't the noise from the garage, even if it was the middle of the afternoon. And it wasn't the ache in his shoulder that had plagued him ever since the virus was reactivated. It wasn't even the virus itself, or agonizing over it.
Ziggy's voice was the last straw. He got up, opened the door, and took less than a second to assess the scene on the catwalk: Ziggy hanging over the railing, yelling something to Flynn about the music and the way it sounded like engine noise, and Flynn threatening to drop something on him from all the way down there.
"Hey," Dillon said, and Ziggy jumped. "We need to talk."
"Uh, okay." He'd barely turned away from the railing when Dillon reminded himself for the third time not to just grab him and shove him into the room. He might as well pretend he knew how to be patient. Apparently he wasn't going to get far with either of them if he didn't.
He even managed to wait for the door to close behind them before he said, "I think the wonder twins are Venjix operatives. Don't tell anyone. Also, the doc's afraid you're keeping things from her."
Ziggy gaped at him for less time than it would have taken anyone else to process what he'd said. "Okay," he said, "the irony of that as a conversation opener is, well, really kind of overwhelming. I assume you have some vague, semi-relevant concept, maybe, of how it sounds?"
"It sounds like me telling you two important and unrelated things," Dillon informed him.
"Yeah, see--" Ziggy shook his head, a laugh escaping as he held up his hand. "It's the fact that you think they're unrelated that kills me. But look, I think we should probably deal with the part that could kill all of us first, so... Venjix operatives? Miss Happy and Mr. Go Lucky? How does that work?"
"They're cyborgs," Dillon said. "I don't think the doc knows."
"How do you know?" Ziggy asked indignantly. "They just got here! You take one look at them and boom--well, bang; boom is getting a little overused with their tendency toward loud and frankly kind of graphic reenactments of various explosions, most of which seem to be caused by them, but..."
Dillon just looked at him, and finally Ziggy trailed off and just stared back at him. "You know," he finished. "So how do you know?"
"I don't," Dillon said. "But they're going to a lot of trouble to hide it, and that can't be a good sign."
"Um, you just heard yourself, right?" Ziggy was squinting at him. "The fact that they don't show any evidence of being cyborgs is the reason they are? Which, I mean, okay, it has a certain pleasing if very circular logic, but, uh, consider this: maybe they're not cyborgs at all, and that's why they don't show it?"
"Oh, yeah," he said flatly. "That makes sense."
Ziggy gave him a suspicious look, and Dillon rolled his eyes.
"Look," he said, because Ziggy was clearly missing the important part of this conversation. "You're creeping the doc out by keeping stuff to yourself. She knows you know, okay; don't pretend you don't."
"Are we really having this conversation?" Ziggy demanded. "I mean, are we standing here, having this conversation?"
There didn't seem to be any reasonable answer to this. "I was trying to sleep," Dillon said at last.
"Well, I'm trying to figure you out," Ziggy informed him. "Really, you're gonna tell me something totally, I don't know, off the wall, and also that I shouldn't tell anyone, and to you the important thing is that somehow I'm mysteriously keeping secrets from Doc K, which by the way I'm not because someone would have to actually tell me something for me to keep it a secret!"
Dillon frowned. "She thinks you know stuff you're not telling her."
"Like she ever tells us anything!" Ziggy exclaimed. "Like you ever tell anyone anything! Why am I the one who has to change, huh?"
"I don't know anything," Dillon said testily. "If I had anything to tell you, I would. But I don't."
"That amnesia excuse always works for you, doesn't it," Ziggy muttered. "Which, I'm not saying it shouldn't, right? It's just, you know what I know? I know it works for her too, so I'm just doing everyone a favor by trying not to be weird, and then you tell me that trying not to be weird is weird!"
"You're babbling," Dillon remarked, for lack of anything better to say.
Ziggy stared at him. "Uh, yeah, have you met me?"
"Have we kissed?" Dillon countered.
Ziggy blinked. "I--I'm pretty sure I'd remember that."
"You want to?"
"Gee, let me think." Ziggy came that close to rolling his eyes. "Did I risk freaking you out and pissing off Dr. K so I could hang out with you exactly the way we did before? No, actually I didn't. So I think, in this case, the answer to your question--"
His voice broke as Dillon stepped closer, and he stopped talking.
"I think you're funny," Dillon told him.
Ziggy swallowed, but he didn't back down. "Yeah," he agreed, though his tone was softer than it had been before. "I like you, too."
Ziggy was pretty sure Dr. K checked the cameras in the garage automatically. She never walked into a room without knowing who was inside, and she often came through a door already addressing them. It was probably smart--given how many times the base had been compromised--not to take for granted that she was safe.
It was also, he thought, kind of sad.
Still, he respected her paranoia and he didn't try to sneak up on her. He might possibly know where all the cameras were and exactly what their range was... But he also knew where the cannons were, and thanks to Dillon's green tape on the floor he'd learned to avoid those too. There were things that living in the garage taught you.
So when he found himself sitting on the floor behind the pool table, patting the puppy and conveniently invisible to any of the numerous cameras fixed on the training room doors, it was mostly an unconscious choice. He heard her footsteps when she headed for the kitchen, and he thought it was typical of her to wait until everyone else was gone before admitting she was hungry. But instead she walked right through, onto the garage floor--
Where she stopped and spun. Ziggy patted the puppy's ear reassuringly when it twitched, maybe registering the sudden attention. "I'm not talking to you," he said, waving in her direction.
"What are you doing here?" she blurted out.
"Because you are not talking to me," he continued. "That's why. If you're curious."
Dr. K looked around the garage like the other Rangers might be nearby and she had just missed them. "I thought everyone went to the park for the mayor's speech."
The puppy heaved a sigh, surprisingly big for such a little animal, and nestled her head more snugly against Ziggy's knee. "Really," he continued, patting the puppy's shoulder. "How hard is it to say, 'Good job, Ziggy'? 'I'm glad you didn't die, Ziggy'?
"Or even, 'Congratulations on not screwing up as much as usual, Ziggy,'" he added, warming to the topic. "Or maybe, 'You weren't my first choice for that morpher but hey, turns out you're better than nothing, Ziggy.'"
Dr. K was staring at him again. "What are you talking about?"
"Are you still mad at me for using your name?" he asked, frowning up at her. "Because, I don't know if you've noticed, but I apologized like a hundred times. And we did talk about this, you know: whether there are unspoken rules? Remember that conversation?"
"It's funny," she said, frowning back at him. "You not talking to me sounds a lot like you all the rest of the time. When presumably you are talking to me."
"Forget it," he said, holding up his hand and turning back to the puppy. "Until you can think of something nice to say, I'm not saying anything at all."
He didn't mean it, of course. He wasn't even mad at her, he was just... miffed. Yeah, miffed. That was it. Because seriously, it had been days now, and he was fine when she was giving everyone the cold shoulder. He just didn't see why he, in particular, should get nothing when everyone else was on the receiving end of post-twin friendliness.
"You can use my name," she said abruptly.
He blinked down at the puppy, still sleepy and unmoving at his side. Dogs didn't make you hallucinate, did they? He didn't know that much about them, but Dillon had gotten a book and Casey had promised that as long as they fed and watered her she'd be fine. With a little company.
He didn't know how much was "a little," and he figured it was better to give her too much than not enough. Especially since Casey's idea of "company" seemed to be attaching himself to someone 24/7.
"That was supposed to be nice," Dr. K added, and now she sounded kind of annoyed. "In case that wasn't clear."
"Yeah, sorry," Ziggy said, lifting his head to look at her again. "I thought you just said I could call you by your name."
"Not around the others," she snapped.
He considered that. "What about Dillon?"
"He doesn't use it," she said, and a funny look crossed her face before she shrugged. "He doesn't say it, anyway."
"No, I mean--" Really? He'd written it on her tray. "What about when he's around, does he count as others--that's what I meant."
"No." This time the look she gave him was clearly skeptical. "Obviously not."
"Oh, well excuse me for not psychically knowing," Ziggy said, rolling his eyes. "I think I need a decoder ring for your decoder ring."
She didn't say anything, but when he looked at her, she was frowning again.
The puppy's front paws twitched, one of them lifting as if to bat away an invisible annoyance. The eyes didn't open, though, and as far as Ziggy could tell she was still asleep. He patted her paws, just to see what would happen. There was no reaction.
"I'll tell people you're our mentor," he said after a moment. "If you want."
"I am your mentor," she said.
"Yeah, and I happen to be a very nice person," he retorted. "Who is, if I do say so myself, at least decently good at his job and an asset to the team. But you haven't gone out of your way to share that lately, have you."
"Look, I'm not good at this leadership thing," Dr. K told him. She said it like the idea itself was distasteful. "That's Scott's job. I'm not even supposed to have to interact with you face to face. I just design the technology and make sure it gets put together in a way that isn't a total loss. I can train you to use it, but what do I know about building confidence or... or being nice, or anything like that?"
Ziggy blinked at her. "You're nice," he said. "You're just a little... inattentive? Sometimes?"
"I'm not nice," she said. "I don't know how to be nice. I place no value on being nice. But Gem and Gemma have pointed out, perhaps correctly, that while Scott maintains the morale of his original teammates seemingly without effort, he has been less successful with you and Dillon."
"What? No," he protested. "Dillon likes Scott. I like Scott. I mean, obviously his hair isn't as great as mine, but other than a few jealousy issues on that front he does a great job as the Red Ranger."
"If Dillon told you to do something," she said, "and Scott told you to do something else, who would you obey?"
"Wait." Ziggy squinted at her. "What does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with you being nice? 'Cause I'm not seeing the connection. Unless it's that you think you should be more like Scott--which, trust me, I think he's a great guy but one of him is plenty."
She sighed. "I'm just trying to provide some sense of stability in an environment that is by definition unpredictable. As I haven't had any training in this area, I'm not very good at it. Yet."
"Dr. K," he said, and she didn't seem to notice that he didn't use her name, which was exactly why he hadn't. "You don't have to do everything around here. There are eight people living in this garage, and I'm pretty sure most of us are capable of positively reinforcing each other as needed."
She gave him a blank look. "Then why aren't you talking to me?"
"Because you're not talking to me," he reminded her. "It doesn't have anything to do with positive reinforcement, or a stable work environment, or whatever. I'm just saying, as your friend, that if you're deliberately ignoring me? I'm deliberately ignoring you back."
"Why?" she wanted to know. "If I've done something you think is ineffective, why would you ignore it?"
Ziggy tried not to smile and failed completely. "Okay, Doc. Listen to what I'm saying, not to what I say I'm saying. I'm ignoring you because you won't say anything nice about me in front of the others, and I want to know why that's so hard."
He paused, staring at her, and then said, "What did I just tell you?"
"That you're ignoring me," she said, frowning.
"No," he said patiently. "That's what I said I'm doing."
"Why wouldn't you do what you say you're doing?" she wanted to know.
He kept one hand on the puppy's shoulder, but he spread his other hand out to the side. "Welcome to the real world, Doc. Fun place to visit, strange place to live, but you'll find most of the people worth knowing actually do swing by here from time to time, so it's worth it to learn the law of the land. As they say."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she told him.
"No," Ziggy said, careful not to sigh. He looked down at the puppy beside him and wondered if all humans needed was food and water and "a little" company. "I'm getting that, actually."
There was another moment where he expected her to give up, to walk away, conversation over. On to... wherever she'd been going when she emerged from the training room. He tried to think of something else he could say that would help.
"Would you like a lollipop?" she asked.
He tilted his head up at her, wondering where that had come from.
"I mean, it works for Dillon," she blurted out. "When you get mad at him. He gives you a lollipop, and then you're not mad at him anymore."
Well, that was a gross oversimplification, but he thought now probably wasn't the best time to point it out. "I'm not mad at you," he said instead. "But," he added quickly, "I'll still take that lollipop."
Dr. K turned away, walked over to Dillon's car, and pulled open the driver's side door. She climbed in, almost swallowed by the bucket seat even as she leaned into the back. Ziggy gave the puppy a last pat before getting up to follow her. Did Dillon know she went into his car when he wasn't there?
Who was he kidding; of course Dillon knew. Ziggy went around the passenger side and got in, grinning as she handed him a lime green lollipop. "Thanks," he said, reaching back without looking. "You want one?"
"When did he get colors?" she asked.
They were sorted, if you knew what you were looking for. He pulled out a pineapple-flavored lollipop with a flourish. "Summer made fun of him," he said, offering the candy to her.
She twisted around, fitting easily between the steering wheel and the back of the seat even with her knees drawn up in front of her. "Thank you," she said, with sudden and unexpected courtesy. She didn't have any trouble with the wrapper.
"You know," Ziggy said after a moment. His own lollipop was sweet and sour at the same time, and he could see through the windshield that the puppy was waking up over by the pool table. "You're an excellent mentor, Kaia."
She froze, lollipop in her mouth and her fingers still wrapped around the stick. Then, after a moment, she pulled the lollipop free and repeated, "Thank you. Ziggy."
He smiled over at her. She gave him a brief smile in return before popping the lollipop back into her mouth. He just shrugged to himself when she didn't return the compliment. Baby steps.
A soft clicking sound and a little whine drew his attention to the ground beside the open passenger door, where he found the puppy staring up at him. Paws shifted and the tail wagged a couple of times as the puppy tried to find a way to climb in with him. He held his lollipop out of the way and pointed down at the floor, trying to discourage her.
"No, remember, Dillon said you're not allowed in the car," Ziggy told the puppy. "He specifically said--"
The puppy wagged harder at the sound of his voice, putting her front paws up on the bottom of the frame. "Oh, all right," Ziggy said, putting his lollipop back in his mouth. He leaned over and picked her up, trying to settle her in his lap while she scrambled for balance.
"Hold still," Ziggy mumbled around his lollipop. Dillon would know if she scratched the seat. How, Ziggy had no idea, since the car wasn't exactly pristine, but Dillon's eyes were ridiculous.
Then another hand entered his field of vision and the puppy stretched out her nose eagerly. Ziggy looked up in surprise as Dr. K gave the puppy's ear a tentative scratch. It was, as far as he knew, the first time she'd so much as touched the puppy.
She was smiling.
Ziggy sat back, one arm around the squirming bundle of fur and the other hand holding his lollipop while he told the puppy she was a good dog. She seemed as interested in Dr. K's colorless candy as she was in the fingers scritching under her chin, but she was easily thwarted.
"Your compassion and creative circumvention of other people's rules and assumptions," Dr. K said, apparently speaking to the puppy, "make you a valuable addition to this team. And I think--although I don't have a lot of experience in this area--they are particularly desirable traits in a friend, as well. Ziggy."
Ziggy stared at her, open-mouthed.
She looked up, and her smile was awkward. "I don't know if it's appropriate to express such sentiments in front of other people. Also, I find myself distinctly nervous about it. Even when you are my only audience."
"Oh, uh, that's... totally understandable," he said quickly. "But--unnecessary! I mean, because... there's nothing to be nervous about! After all, I am pretty awesome. I know how to take a compliment."
She tilted her head. "Is there a particular procedure for it?"
"Um--" He had to think about it. "Well, yeah. First you say thank you--so, thank you--and then, if you like the person, you compliment them back.
"Unless you complimented them first," he added, "and they were the one returning your compliment. Then you can just stop, because otherwise it gets kind of crazy."
"That's very complicated," she muttered. There was a quiet moment, like she was done, and then she glanced at him and back to the puppy quickly. "I wish I could remember."
That she had meant to say it was obvious. That she'd thought about it first was equally obvious. "Yeah," he said carefully. "Sorry about... you know, everything that happened to you."
"You know," she said flatly. "Dillon showed me the research you did."
"Well..." Ziggy shrugged, slightly more apologetic now than he'd been at the time. "He asked."
"You have remarkable sources," she told the puppy.
He frowned a little. "It kills me that they missed the kidnapping thing. How long ago was that? I mean, if you don't mind me asking?"
She shook her head. "I can't--" She broke off, and he realized belatedly that she had been shaking her head out of protest, not carelessness. "I mean..." She sounded upset, twisted up inside, and he wished he hadn't said anything.
"It doesn't matter," she said at last. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Forget I said anything," he promised. "Terrible question, my bad. Hey, look at this cute puppy. What are we going to call her? I was thinking we should name her for some kind of candy."
"December 2006," she blurted out. "That's what they tell me."
"Yeah?" Ziggy was careful not to change his tone of voice at all. "When you were at the lab?"
"I was always at a lab." She sounded disgusted, like she hated what she knew and what she didn't the same. "I guess. I don't know; I remember being locked in a concrete compound most of my life, so what do I know. They say I was only there two months before I broke out, but the rehab didn't work and by then it was too late anyway."
"But... you did get out," he said, almost a question when she stopped talking. Maybe she didn't want to say anything else, but he had to, to make sure she knew it was okay. "And you got your friends out."
"They're not even human anymore." She was looking at the puppy, so she didn't see him blink. She knew. Dillon had told him not to tell her, but she already knew? "It doesn't matter. They were in a labor camp because of me; they should hate me."
"They don't," Ziggy said, but she still wouldn't look at him. "I mean, it's obvious they don't. They love you."
She didn't answer, just shook her head again, and he thought she was crying. He waited a minute, maybe two--okay, three or four--and when it was clear she wasn't going to say anything else, but she hadn't left either, he put his hand on the puppy's head and ruffled her ears.
"Okay," he said. "So, what do you think? Caramel? Butterscotch?"
She made a little sound, choked by otherwise silent tears... almost a laugh. "Those are stupid names," she muttered. "We're not going to eat it."
"But she's very sweet," Ziggy countered. "Honey? We could call her Honey. Or Tapioca."
"I don't care what you call it," she informed him. She shifted, leaning sideways against the seat, and added, "It's just a puppy; why does it need a name?" before she stuck her lollipop back in her mouth and frowned half-heartedly at the little creature.
"She's a very cute puppy," he corrected. "And everyone deserves to be known. Look at this fluffy adorable thing and tell me she shouldn't have a home and a family and a little bed with her name on it. She's cute, right? C'mon, admit she's cute."
She glared at him, and if it was less effective when her eyes were red and her cheeks were still damp, he didn't tell her. "I'm going to call her Cutie if you don't," he warned her instead.
She rolled her eyes, pulling her lollipop out of her mouth momentarily, and said with obvious reluctance, "I suppose, in a certain light, she could be considered... not ugly."
"Yes!" He didn't bother to keep it from sounding like a cheer. "Excellent! She is very not ugly. We can work with that."
The look he received for this was, if not happier, at least less sad.
"I actually don't care whether they cleaned them or not," Ziggy was telling Flynn. "It makes no difference to me. Because, strangely, I find neutronium detonating power incompatible with, I don't know, my internal organs."
Dillon smiled down at the bowl in front of him. He didn't know what it might have been used for before it was filled with tomatoes, and he wasn't asking. He figured Ziggy's tirade was as much for the humor value as anything else.
"You're being a bit of a baby, don't you think?" Flynn asked. "They're going to be eating off them too."
"Oh, that makes me feel so much better!" Ziggy retorted. "The destructo twins are perfectly willing to make their own dinner with utensils that have recently been in contact with vast quantities of explosives! What a surprise!"
"What does--" Gemma began.
"Destructo mean?" her brother added. "I like--"
"The sound of it!" she finished for him.
"It's a made up word," Summer told them, coming around the counter. "Please ignore Ziggy; he's just being rude."
"I hardly think expressing a concern for all of our health and well-being is rude!" Ziggy exclaimed. "Excuse me if I don't want to wake up in pieces plastered all over the wall!"
"Oh, detonating power is--"
"Much more effective than that," Gemma said.
"You wouldn't wake up," Gem concluded, and Dillon lifted his head in surprise.
Turning to stare at them, he couldn't help but frown a little. They very obviously pretended not to notice, smiling at each other and then down at the vegetables Flynn had told them to chop. The reflective stripes on their matching track suits only added to their earnest air, but he'd seen them smile through their teeth and tell the highest military authority in Corinth to fuck off.
Not that he held that against them. He'd done the same, after all. But it was exactly how familiar they seemed that made him nervous. They hid their intelligence behind determined laughter and wide-eyed inexperience, and every time their behavior changed even slightly it put him on edge.
Gem had just spoken a full sentence.
"Garlic," Flynn was telling Ziggy. "Two cloves, minced."
"Well, sure," Ziggy replied, "because they didn't use the cutting board, did they!"
"We should have some distinction between kitchen implements and lab tools," Scott said. "That's not unreasonable."
"Thank you." Ziggy pointed a knife in his direction. "In case any of you were wondering? That is the voice of reason talking."
Dillon saw a flash of white out of the corner of his eye and reached out, faster than even she could react. She twisted, automatic, and he knew he'd just triggered her self-defense training. But unlike him, her first reaction wasn't to strike, and he was left holding an empty lab coat.
He ignored her glare, tossing the coat over the chair next to him and going back to peeling tomatoes. She stood very still for a moment, then shook her head and kept walking. Dillon smiled at the table.
"Sign, please." An official looking piece of paper landed on the counter beside him, and he looked up at Summer's expectant expression.
He frowned back at the paper. "What's this?"
"Paperwork," she said succinctly.
Dillon rolled his eyes. "Yes, work in the form of paper. Thank you. That was so helpful."
She smiled sweetly, but she did relent. "Citizenship petitions for Gem and Gemma. We're sponsoring them."
He tilted his head at her. "We are?"
"Pay it forward, Dillon." She produced a pen and slapped it down on top of the paper. "There's more forms where that came from."
"Great," he grumbled, wiping his hands off before he reached for the pen.
"Hey, maybe we should copy these," Scott said, bringing over another official form and taking the chair next to Dillon without asking. "I mean, just the top sheet or whatever. For our wall."
"Our wall?" a sharp voice repeated archly.
Dillon glanced over his shoulder to find green eyes glaring up at Scott, who shrugged. "The wall?" he offered, waving at the screen in the briefing area. Or the area around it, which had been filled with decoder rings and thank-you cards and the butterfly picture Gem and Gemma had left for K to explain their earlier absence.
"I know which wall you're referring to," she informed him. "I take exception to the possessive 'our.' Also, you're in my seat."
"Oh, am I now," Scott said with a grin. "It's not 'our' wall, but it is 'your' chair? How does that work?"
"My coat is there," she snapped.
"Yeah, well, my decoder ring is on the wall," Scott countered.
"Mine was there first," she said primly.
Scott hesitated, and that was why he would lose.
"She's got a point there," Dillon remarked.
To his surprise, she turned and smiled at him. "Thank you," she declared. "Would you like some help with those tomatoes?"
He paused, looking from the bowl to her. "Do you know how to peel tomatoes?"
She frowned back at him. "Of course not," she said, like she couldn't imagine why he would ask. "I was told the act of offering had intrinsic significance."
Dillon looked over her shoulder just in time to catch Ziggy's eye. Ziggy saluted with the knife, amusement bright in his eyes, and Dillon felt his lips quirk. "I guess," he said, looking at her again. "If that's what they tell us."
She turned her frown on Scott, who was watching the exchange with a smirk on his face. "I believe Ranger Blue requires your presence," she told him.
"No, I'm fine," Flynn assured them. Then, "Hey!"
Ziggy, Dillon knew, had just whacked him on the shoulder.
"Oh, aye," Flynn added after a moment. "I could definitely, uh... use your help."
Scott rolled his eyes. He got up, though, just as Gemma chimed in, "We're all--"
"Finished here!" Gem said. "What can we--"
"Do next?" his twin wanted to know. "And what's a--"
"Decoder ring?" Gem's gaze didn't so much as flicker in the direction of the wall. Dillon didn't doubt that the two of them had memorized everything on it and could repeat the contents verbatim if pressed.
"It's a silly exercise in second-guessing other people's communication." This time it wasn't Summer who answered, and Dillon narrowed his eyes as the chair beside him stayed vacant. She peeled one of the lists off of the wall and took it over to the twins.
Her own, he noticed. And she had been unexpectedly careful about removing it.
"Hey, we should make a decoder ring for Gem and Gemma," Ziggy said, like he had just thought of it.
"Aye," Flynn said, "but none of us have the slightest idea what they're saying."
"Small problem," Ziggy admitted.
Dillon followed their exchange while he listened with more than half an ear to the explanation taking place at the table. "Someone writes something you said on the left side," she was saying, "and then they put what they think you meant over here, on the other side."
"What if you--" Gem actually paused here, not just waiting for his sister, but frowning slightly as he thought about it.
Gemma jumped in anyway. "Meant what you said?" she asked.
"Don't try to apply logic to the exercise. It's more of a... creativity challenge."
"Oh, that," Gemma said with a smile.
"We're good at!" Gem finished.
"Also," Ziggy was saying, "we'd probably have to have just one decoder ring for the two of them. Since they say everything together."
"Not true," Scott said.
Dillon looked over at him, and he wasn't the only one. The twins continued asking questions about the list like they weren't paying any attention. He knew better.
Scott shrugged in the face of everyone's silent curiosity. "They still talk when they're not in the same room together. To other people, I mean."
"To you, you mean," Ziggy scoffed. "Can't prove it by me, is all I'm saying."
"So the whole--"
"Team works on this?" The twins--and their "best friend"--were bent over the list with all the studious air of scientists trying to figure out some interesting anthropological quirk. And if Dillon thought the analogy wasn't apt, he might find it more charming.
"Actually, Dillon did all of these." She said it in a funny tone that he didn't recognize until she added, "He started it, so all the ones at the top are his."
She was smiling. That was what made her sound different.
"You mean, his," Gem said.
"But really yours?" Gemma added.
"He wrote down some things I said to Ziggy," she explained. "Then he wrote down what he thought they meant."
"Wow," Gemma said, tilting her head to one side as she narrowed her eyes at the list. Dillon could almost see the words being filed as she reviewed them.
"He knows you," Gem remarked.
"Really well," Gemma said.
They probably didn't mean for that to sound so creepy, Dillon thought.
Ziggy knew Dillon wasn't cool with the wonder twins sleeping in auxiliary control. He also knew Dillon and K didn't talk about the possibility that her friends were evil Venjix war machines, despite the fact that Ziggy had done his best to spread the word. Since Dillon had only told him not to tell Dr. K, he'd gone ahead and alerted the rest of the team, and he'd repeated back to Dillon what K had said about knowing they weren't human.
The worst part about it was that, as far as he could tell, they all basically agreed on this. Scott had backed Dillon, starting an informal rotation with Flynn and Summer to make sure the twins were left alone as infrequently as possible. Ziggy thought he and Dillon had been left out until he realized they were in charge of keeping an eye on the twins whenever they left the garage. Shortly after that, he figured out that even K was helping: by coming to find one of them whenever she was alone.
She made it look incidental, of course. But none of the rest of the team would intrude when she and the twins put their heads together, which was often, and that meant they didn't always know when Gem and Gemma wandered off. Dr. K would make it obvious by putting in an appearance, often brief and usually scathing, that let at least one other member of the team know they weren't with her anymore.
So they all agreed, and they still couldn't talk about it. Her and Dillon, her and him, her and anyone. Dillon and anyone who didn't bring it up first--and even when they did, his participation was largely limited to single syllables. At least he hadn't gotten mad at Ziggy for mentioning it to the rest of them, K excluded.
Obviously none of them discussed it with Gem and Gemma. Whether the twins actually were evil or not was a moot point. They liked or pretended to like everything, but there were two things they were extra enthusiastic about: blowing things up, and defending Dr. K.
It was this last that gave them free range in the garage, despite the misgivings of almost everyone. There just weren't enough of them to go around. It annoyed Scott and Dillon most of all, but the five of them couldn't possibly assure her safety. Seven on one made for better odds--as long as it wasn't the twins they ended up having to defend her from.
The scene in auxiliary control tonight made that chance seem almost laughable. There were pillows scattered everywhere and the covers had been stripped off both beds, jammed and tucked and stretched across the floor. Three people with black hair and white alphabet pajamas were sprawled out with markers and paper and little plastic bins of art supplies--writing in the journals Gem and Gemma sometimes left lying around the garage.
Except there were three journals, and three little plastic bins. And Dr. K's blue puppy slippers had been kicked off, leaving her barefoot with her shoulder pressed up against Gem's while he showed her how to paint a watercolor... sky.
Or maybe ocean. A lake? It was hard to tell.
"Yes?" Green eyes stared up at him as she craned her neck, and two sets of identical brown immediately followed. Not that it was the first time they'd looked at him. He'd seen first Gemma, then Gem, look away from the door the moment he came in.
"Hi," Gemma began.
"Ziggy!" Gem finished. "Have you come--
"To journal with us?"
"Uh, well, that's very kind," Ziggy said, "but I was actually looking for Dr. K."
"And you," Gemma said.
"Found her!" Gem nudged K's shoulder and she actually smiled, even if she did look down to make it less obvious. "Did you want to--"
"Borrow her?" Gemma asked.
"It's not me, so much," Ziggy said. "I was just thinking that... well, the problem is--you know how the people we were hoping to find at the factory weren't exactly the people we found? One person in particular?"
"Dillon's sister." Dr. K didn't sit up, but she twisted her paintbrush away from the sky and frowned. "She wasn't there. The odds against it were high; it wasn't a surprise."
"Yeah, but he wanted it to happen," Ziggy insisted. "I don't know if you noticed, but he ran back into a burning building to find someone we'd already told him wasn't there."
She dipped her paintbrush into the water and let it go, resting against the side of a tumbler Ziggy recognized as one of their drink glasses. He thought he knew where the twins were getting the idea that everything in the kitchen was fair game. "I noticed," she said.
"Well, he's up on the roof," Ziggy told her. "Staring at that key Summer found."
"That's a stupid place to be," she said sharply. "The roof is the least defensible location on base. At night there's no sun to disguise the infrared signature of his body."
The twins were looking from him to her and back again, waiting expectantly on each reply. Ziggy raised his hands in surrender. "I know," he said. "I know; I tried to tell him, but it's not like he doesn't know that, right?"
Staring down at her, he added, "He ran into a burning building."
She was still frowning. "He's a cyborg. He can tolerate significantly higher temperatures than you or I. And he can certainly see through smoke better than any of us."
Yeah, Ziggy had his suspicions about that, too. Their test results were measured against the standard she had set? She'd never mentioned it again, but he didn't forget things like that. He knew that Dillon didn't either: he tested her idly, for the fun of it, all the time.
"Regardless," Ziggy said. "He's on the roof and none of us can make him come in. He let Summer sit with him as long as she doesn't talk, but Scott and Flynn went to bed hours ago and you know he won't listen to them anyway."
"Why can't he just," Gemma began.
"Stay on the roof?" Gem wanted to know.
But K was sitting up now, leaving her half-painted sky in the journal behind her. She held out her hands, maybe for balance as she stood. No one reached for her, but Ziggy saw Gem shift slightly. Bracing himself. Ziggy knew that posture from training with Dillon: he was ready to catch her if she stumbled.
While Gem watched K, Gemma was watching Ziggy, and he figured the day they moved in was the day this had become the most secure place in the garage.
"Are you coming?"
The impatient question from the door made him turn around, and he pointed back over his shoulder at the twins. "Uh, should I--" He'd thought he would have to stay and make excuses, or maybe entertain them in her place, but she sounded like she expected him to follow her. Now.
"I mean," Ziggy said, looking from her to Gem and Gemma. "Um, sorry? To interrupt?
"Coming," he added quickly. "Really, I'm right behind you. Lead the way."
In her pajamas. Which was kind of adorable and also way more creepy after seeing Gemma and Gem dressed exactly the same way. He'd wondered where her pajamas came from. Now he thought any of his guesses would have been better than the truth. Why did they even still wear them?
"So, do you really want me to--" He waved vaguely at the stairs, not that it did any good, since she still wasn't looking at him. "It's just that he's pretty much ignoring me right now, and I thought you might want to--"
She interrupted him in a way that, for once, indicated she knew exactly what he meant. "If I go alone," she said over her shoulder, "it will look like I'm bullying him."
"Okay, leaving aside the obvious humor value of you bullying anyone," Ziggy began, reaching out to grab the railing as he amended, "not that you can't; you do... but not in a bad way. I'm just saying--right. If we both go together, it'll look like we're ganging up on him."
She glanced back at him as she turned the corner onto the landing. "We are."
"Oh." He considered that. "Yeah, well, I guess that makes sense."
She didn't deign to reply. He wasn't totally convinced, either, since by the time he got to the top of the ladder she was already at the edge of the roof, frowning down at Summer and Dillon. Or he imagined she was frowning; he couldn't really tell in the weird shadows cast by the city lights.
"Hey, Doc," he heard Dillon say. "Come to take your turn?"
Summer looked up at Ziggy as he joined them. "That's already more than he's said to me all night," she murmured.
Ziggy didn't answer, well aware of the glare Dillon shot his way. He knew who was responsible for getting K here.
"Give me the key," she said.
Ziggy and Summer exchanged glances. Okay. That was unexpected.
Dillon was staring up at her. "Why would I do that?"
"Because I asked you to," she said, like it was a ridiculous question. "Obviously."
"You didn't," Dillon pointed out. "As a matter of fact."
But he was holding it up, chain slipping through his fingers as he offered her the key. Just like that. Like she really had asked, and that was all it took. Like her telling him to do something wasn't always his cue to do exactly the opposite.
Dr. K caught the chain with her little finger, teased it apart, and put it over her head. "I'm going to bed," she said.
Then she turned and walked away.
"Hey," Dillon said. He raised his voice to reach her through the shadows. "Doc. I want that key."
"You know where to find it," she called over her shoulder.
Ziggy could practically feel Summer staring, so he looked at her and she looked back, eyes wide and his expression probably wasn't much better. Dillon didn't move for a count of maybe one and a half. Then he swung around, rising and striding off as smoothly as a shadow himself.
They were gone from the roof a moment later, and Ziggy still wasn't sure quite what had happened.
"Well, that was... interesting," Summer said. "Does Dillon sleep in your room?"
"Yeah," he said quickly. "When he sleeps, which isn't really that--I mean yeah. Of course he does."
"Really." She sounded way too thoughtful for his peace of mind. "You'll let us know if that changes, right?"
"Oh, sure," he said, and the promise was reckless and reflexive and detached. He felt like he was standing in ice water and he hadn't figured out how cold it was yet. "You can count on the Zig-meister. The one in the know, that's me."
He followed her down the stairs, but she didn't look back. She didn't acknowledge him in any way, even when she stopped at her station in the training room and sat down. She frowned at the screen. Then she started typing.
"Doc." He put one hand on either side of the screen and stared down at her. "Give me the key."
She spared him a brief glance. "If you're just going to interrupt me, you can wait in my room," she said.
"Why would I do that?" he demanded. "You're right here."
"And it will take me ninety seconds to reset the diagnostics," she said. "I don't understand why it's difficult to do nothing for a minute and a half."
"Why am I waiting?" he wanted to know. "What do you want with the key, anyway? It doesn't do anything. Believe me, I've tried."
"While I find it amusing that you assume no one could possibly think of something you haven't," she said, fingers flying over the keyboard as her gaze darted from one screen to the next, "I actually don't care about your sister's key. Or yours, for that matter."
"Great," he snapped. "Hand it over and I'll get out of your hair."
"I do, however, care about you," she continued without looking up. "Since anecdotal evidence indicates that having the second key in your possession makes you behave even more recklessly than usual, I've decided it will not remain in your possession."
"Yeah," he told her. "I think it will."
"I've anticipated your objection," she replied. The peripheral pattern of her fingers confirmed her diagnostic excuse. "I can't keep you without the key, nor can I keep the key without you."
She entered the final code for the last cycle's confirmation and took her eyes off of the screen for a second. "Therefore," she said, suddenly studying him instead, "the logical solution is to keep both you and the key."
She didn't usually look at him when she was telling him what they would do. Afterwards, yes, even immediately afterwards, as though anything less than instant agreement made her wonder what was taking him so long. But she rarely looked at him while she was explaining her conclusions.
"Ziggy said the shark zord was pulling to the right," he said.
She blinked. "Yes, I know. Diagnostics confirm a point oh two fluctuation in the lateral stabilizers."
Meaning she'd just absorbed and processed several megabytes of data in what was, at most, 27 seconds. He wasn't surprised. "You'll fix it," he said.
She didn't seem to take offense. Her expression told him she didn't even understand why he'd said it. "Of course."
"You're keeping me and the key by making me sleep in your room," he said, just to make sure. "You do know I have a roommate? I'm sure he'd notice if I snuck off in the middle of the night."
"He never has before," she remarked, turning back to the screens. "Ziggy's record of keeping you out of trouble is nonexistent."
He eyed her, amused but careful not to smile. He did have to take care: she was funny without even trying. "Doc, you have a negative record of keeping me out of trouble."
"Our metaphorical records are relative," she replied. "I send you into trouble with me, a field team, and a technological armada at your back. You, left to your own devices, run into trouble alone. In every sense of the word."
He considered that, but there was really only one response he could give. "I'm going to find her."
"I know," she agreed, eyes flicking over the security feed while her fingers programmed the reset. "The only question is whether you'll still be alive to meet her after you get her out."
"I think I can--"
The way she looked past him made him stop and turn. Ziggy was standing in the doorway from the kitchen, arms crossed, shoulder braced against the wall. He straightened as soon as Dillon saw him, dropping his arms and sliding his hands into his pockets--but she'd been watching for longer, and he hadn't moved.
He'd wanted Dillon to see him there.
"Oh, hey," Ziggy said, awkward shrug and surprised smile looking for all the world like he'd been caught off guard. "Sorry, just, uh, looking for Gem and Gemma. I thought they might have wanted more light for their journaling?"
She was giving him a look of utter incomprehension. "There's plenty of light in auxiliary control."
"C'mere," Dillon said. He figured for once he might understand the unspoken message. "Tell her I'm not gonna do something stupid if she doesn't watch me all night long."
"Uh, are you?" Ziggy came in anyway, looking from one of them to the other. "I mean, not that you do stupid things. Exactly. Well, I guess, by certain definitions--really? You're watching him?"
"Stupid," she said. "Characterized by a lack of mental acuity or an inability to learn. I submit that Dillon's actions are more willful than stupid, since his abilities are not in question. It's his tendency to use those abilities in service to reason that I find lacking."
"Wow," Ziggy said, wandering around behind the monitors to stare over her shoulder. "You're the master of the backhanded compliment. Or the mistress, maybe."
"I'm not attempting to deliver a compliment," she replied. "Backhanded or otherwise. I am, however... watching him."
Ziggy squinted at the screen above her hands. "You're not actually reading that, right?"
"I don't need to be watched," Dillon said.
"I don't want you on the roof," she answered.
He glanced around the training room pointedly. "I'm not on the roof now."
The clicking stopped, no flourish, and she gave her screens a final scan. "And I'm done here. It's late; I'm going to bed."
"And you're, uh, taking Dillon with you?" Ziggy asked. He didn't step back when she spun her chair to stand up, which she had clearly expected him to. "Like, right now?"
She blinked at him. "Yes."
"No," Dillon said at the same time. "I already have a keeper, Doc."
"And if I trusted him to do the keeping," she retorted, frowning at Ziggy, "I would leave you to it. Unfortunately, the last three times you've decided to take off while under Ziggy's questionable supervision, you've taken him with you."
"Wait, what?" Ziggy looked over at him. "Did you just call me your keeper?" Glancing back at her, he added, "Did you just call me his keeper?"
"I sleep with Ziggy, Doc," Dillon said. "I think anything else is gonna raise a few eyebrows."
Ziggy made a sound that was somewhere between laughing and choking, but he got it together enough to interrupt. "Trust me, you guys are way past that. I already had to cover for you to Summer.
"Also, I don't know if you know how that sounds, but you don't sleep with me," Ziggy added. "Like, at all. In any way other than sometimes sleeping in the same room where I am also sleeping. Not that I'm saying I'd mind, but seriously. Summer is watching you like a hawk. Or a bear. Something big and smart, anyway."
"I don't see what Ranger Yellow has to do with this conversation," she said.
"You covered for us?" Dillon repeated.
Ziggy shrugged. "She wanted to know if you'd been, uh... if you were still sleeping in our room?"
"I don't know what your sleeping venue has to do with anything at all." She was starting to sound impatient. "Except in that I'm not letting Dillon out of my sight until he either drives me crazy or convinces me he isn't trying to get himself killed. I admit that the former is significantly more likely than the latter."
"I'm not sleeping in your room," Dillon told her. "Your floor is weird, and you have pink sheets. Come upstairs and sleep with us."
Her mouth was open, clearly ready to protest, but this last made her pause.
It was just enough time for Ziggy to say, "Again, can I just point out that you're totally abusing the whole 'sleeping together' concept. I only care because I'm your friend, and doing that could get you into a lot of trouble--"
"You can have my bed," Dillon added. "I'll sleep with Ziggy."
"Okay, no," Ziggy said. "That's a really bad idea."
"Why would I want your bed?" She seemed genuinely puzzled by this. "It's clearly inferior to mine. And besides, all of my things are down here."
"All my stuff's upstairs," Dillon countered.
"Oh, your toothbrush and your other t-shirt? I see how separating you from those things would be a great inconvenience."
"Bye, Doc," he said. "See you in the morning. If I'm still here."
He pushed away from her station and strode toward the door. She'd done it to him with the key; he could do it to her with the threat of disappearing. Apparently. At least he thought he could. It was one big game of chicken, and he wasn't even sure what they were gambling or how high the stakes were anymore.
"Don't worry," he heard Ziggy telling her. "I'll keep an eye on him."
Her sigh was just loud enough to hear as he crossed the threshold of the training room. "Thank you," she said, her voice drifting after him on his way to the stairs. "That's so reassuring."
He tried to tell himself he wasn't surprised when the knock came on their door a few minutes later. Ziggy let her in, and Dillon looked up from the floor where he was recreating her latest unsolvable proof. Her gaze went to the numbers--he had no doubt that she recognized them instantly, even upside-down and incomplete as they were--and then back to him.
She had a plush bunny rabbit under one arm, and she was still wearing the key around her neck.
Dillon waved in the direction of his bed. Brand new navy comforter provided by Ziggy last week, with a second pillow and another blanket that Ziggy claimed to have bought for himself and then changed his mind about. Dillon hadn't asked.
"Hey, uh..." Ziggy sounded casual as Dillon's bed was taken over by a stuffed bunny and a petite figure in alphabet pajamas. "You're not really going to sleep with me, are you?"
He noted the next line of the proof in washable ink on the floor, then sat back to assess its coherence. "Does it look like I'm planning to sleep?" he asked, not looking up.
"You forgot the extradimensional variable," she remarked. He could see her out of the corner of his eye, propped up on one elbow as she peered over the side of the bed at his math. Her math. Whatever.
"Okay, no," Ziggy said. "Work is for work time. Good night."
The lights went out seconds later, and Dillon could just make out Ziggy padding through the darkness to his bed. He waited almost a minute for his eyes to adjust, then went back to writing on the floor. They'd had this argument before, and as long as he didn't keep Ziggy up, it was a compromise they both could live with.
"Just because you're writing in a straight line doesn't make it good math."
The whisper found him in the shadows, but before he could answer Ziggy repeated firmly, "Good night. As in, sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite. Or I will sing you lullabies until you stop talking."
"He's not bluffing," Dillon remarked. He hadn't forgotten the variable; he'd left it out on purpose. He was trying to decide if it could be masking something else. "It's almost worth it."
No one answered. He managed to recreate the rest of the proof in peace, and by the time he was ready to solve the unsolvable part, they were both asleep.
He was alone when he woke up. Well, not alone, exactly, but alone in his bed and he couldn't decide how to feel about that. Dillon had totally not been joking when he said he'd sleep with him. Dillon had also listened when Ziggy told him it was a bad idea, so here they... weren't.
When he rolled over, he realized two things. One, Dillon's bed was still occupied, though not by him. Two, no other part of the room appeared to be occupied by Dillon.
Ziggy sat up. He definitely needed to do something about this. Not because Dillon's absence was alarming, but because he would have to answer to Dr. K if he couldn't explain it when she woke up. Really, would it kill the guy to leave a note?
"I assume this is typical behavior."
Of course she was awake. Awake and staring at him. She pushed herself into a sitting position and swung her legs off the bed as he watched. Her bare feet slid out from under the dark comforter and her pajamas were rumpled, but otherwise she didn't look like she'd been sleeping at all.
"The, uh, the disappearing?" Ziggy held up his hands. "Not that he's disappeared, that's not what I mean at all. I'm sure he's around the garage somewhere, because... well, yeah. Totally typical.
"The guy barely sleeps," he added, as she gazed down at the floor. "What do you expect, right?"
"He solved it," she said.
The math stuff Dillon had drawn on the floor? Ziggy followed her gaze, but it looked like a lot of gibberish to him. "Yeah," he said instead. "He usually does."
She kept staring, so he climbed out of bed and tried not to trip on his way to the door. Ziggy knew exactly where to look. The landing was empty and the floor below was dark, but the garage held a shadow shaped unmistakably like the Fury.
If his car was here, Dillon was here.
"Why is he sleeping on his car?" she asked, otherwise silent at his side.
Ziggy looked in the direction of her voice in surprise. It was darker out here than it was in the room, and he had to look again. Was there a Dillon-shaped shadow on top of the car? Why wouldn't he sleep inside it?
"Is he?" Ziggy squinted into the dimness, wondering how good her eyes really were.
"No." Dillon's voice drifted to them across the empty expanse. "Why would I sleep on my car?"
Ziggy shrugged. His voice did sound like it was coming from the car. And there wasn't any creaking or shifting to indicate leaning that he was calling out the window. "Why would you lie on top of your car if you weren't sleeping?" he called back.
"Because I learned the hard way that it's safer than standing up when I'm testing the garage's voice commands," Dillon said.
"Oh, yeah, the--" Ziggy paused. "Uh, what?"
"Lepus," Dillon said. "Lights."
The garage lights blazed, temporarily blinding Ziggy, and as he flinched back he couldn't help but notice that the person at his side didn't.
"You like rabbits, Doc?" Dillon's voice sounded amused.
Ziggy could feel her step forward, against the railing, and he squinted at her as she leaned over. "How did you figure out the computer's name?" she asked. More curious than annoyed, if he was any judge of intent.
And, as a general rule, he was.
"I've had a lot of time to guess," Dillon replied.
"Yeah," Ziggy said. "The unshakable persistence thing; he does that."
"Danny always did," she remarked. He thought there was a note of fondness hidden under the resignation. It was mostly overridden by the weirdness of the name, though, and he glanced over at her to see if she would explain.
"What?" he prompted, when she only stared.
Movement from the floor made him aware that yes, Dillon was on his car. Sitting on the hood. He'd been leaning back against the windshield but now he was upright, head turned toward them, probably looking up at the landing.
"Oh my god." She didn't move. Her tone didn't even change, but it was a rare day when they heard her swear, and somehow he knew she wasn't talking to him even before she said, "You were my TA."