Chapters:
1. OneHis mind was elsewhere as he made his way to the Bridge. Escaping Dark Spectre's gathering of evil was no simple task, and whether the information was worth it or not the reprieve granted by the element of surprise wouldn't last. He had to get the Megaship out of orbit and away as soon as possible.
His reflexes were a little slower than they should have been; he wasn't expecting trouble on his own ship. He didn't even register the murmur of voices drifting down the hall, and it took a moment to comprehend the people he saw on the Bridge: humans, oblivious to his presence as he stood frozen in the doorway.
She caught his eye first, perhaps because she wore the same color his little sister had always favored. She had soft brown hair, an exuberance that shone in her eyes... and she looked like she'd been through a war.
Her eyes caught his--or so it seemed, since he knew she shouldn't have been able to see through his helmet. For a moment, though, he forgot that he was morphed and he just stared.
Then the other turned around--turned, more importantly, away from the controls. His brain shook away the fog of interrupted planning and started to scream the warning that the onboard computer had neglected: Intruders!
He stepped back even as the other moved forward. His eyes flicked to her behind his visor: she still stood motionless, her wide eyes showing more sympathy than surprise, which unsettled him further. He backed up another step and his long-ignored reflexes kicked in.
His hand shot out, slapping the override next to the door. He was already running when he heard someone hit the floor, and he had to assume that one of them had managed to roll out beneath the door just before it clanged shut. He hoped to reach the Bridge's second exit and trap the remaining intruder, but another pair came around the corner and he wasted precious seconds dealing with them.
By the time he reached the other door, she was there, and something about her--maybe the shock of a girl in yellow again after all these years--made him reluctant to strike her. He ran on, heading for the lower decks.
"DECA, lights."
"Ow! Hey, I had those off for a reason, you know."
"...Sorry. I didn't realize anyone else was in here."
"S'okay. At least it keeps me awake."
"What are you doing here?"
"Just... I don't know. Thinking. Moping, mostly."
"Moping?"
"Yeah, moping. What are *you* doing here?"
"I--couldn't sleep."
"Want to sit down?"
"I guess."
"...So why couldn't you sleep?"
"I just couldn't."
"Right."
"...Why are you moping?"
"I just am."
"Okay."
"Huh."
"'Huh' what?"
"Nothing. Just feeling sorry for myself again."
"Why?"
"You'll laugh."
"No I won't."
"Well... you know when you really like someone?"
"...Yeah?"
"You do?"
"Yeah."
"Oh. Well, have you ever really liked someone who didn't know you existed?"
"Maybe."
"What does that mean?"
"It means 'maybe'."
"...Well, now you know why I'm moping."
"He can't possibly not know you exist."
"I guess he knows. But I don't think he cares."
"...His loss."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"No, what did you--"
"Want something to drink?"
"...Sure!"
"DECA? Two hot chocolates."
"I thought you didn't like hot chocolate!"
"I never said that."
"I'm sure you did!"
"I said I'd never had it. I didn't say I didn't like it."
"Oh. I guess it was the way you said it that made me think you didn't."
"That's just the way I talk."
"You think so?"
"You don't?"
"Not really. Sometimes you're actually nice and stuff."
"'Nice and stuff'?"
"Well, not often."
"Huh."
"Don't say that; that's my word."
"So?"
"So you can't steal my word."
"Not if I was nice and stuff, no."
"...At least tell me why you can't sleep."
"Why?"
"Because I told you why I was moping. Fair's fair."
"People who aren't nice don't have to be fair."
"I didn't mean you're not nice. I just meant you don't act it. Much."
"...I had a nightmare."
"About what?"
"Just stuff."
"Stuff that's happened? Or stuff that might?"
"Stuff that's happened."
"Sorry."
"It's not your fault."
"I'm still sorry."
"I'm sorry you're moping."
"It's not important."
"It's important to you."
"Not compared to your nightmares."
"They don't mean anything."
"They mean you're not sleeping."
"So?"
"So maybe you'd act nicer if you got a full night's sleep."
"Oh."
"I'm just kidding."
"I know."
"I wish I could make your nightmares go away."
"You can't."
"I *know*. I just wish I could."
"...Thanks."
"You're welcome, I guess."
"No, that's really nice of you."
"Self-interest."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"'Self-interest'? Why?"
"I... like to see you smile."
"...You do?"
"Yeah. You don't do it much."
"Maybe I don't have any reason to."
"You do now."
"Why?"
"Because you have us. Friends are supposed to make you smile."
"Oh."
"Haven't you had friends before?"
"Of course."
"Okay, sorry. Just checking."
"You--make me smile."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"...I'm glad."
"I'd better go."
"Hey... thanks. For the hot chocolate, I mean."
"Thanks. I mean, you're welcome."
"...Well--pleasant dreams."
"You too."
"'Night, Andros."
"'Night Ashley."
A few puffy fairweather clouds drifted lazily through the light, but the sun still shone bright and warm on the fields below. Andros recognized the scene immediately: the hills just east of Keyota, where he and Zhane had so often come to play as children. They had spent many nights camped out under this very sky, while the stars splashed distant sunlight over a world gone dark and close.
Without warning, the light vanished and he was once again enveloped by quiet warmth. Unable to shake the warrior instinct, even here in this inviolable place, he stiffened at the sudden loss of vision and he heard someone whisper, "Surprise."
He would know that voice anywhere. Andros relaxed, a reluctant smile tugging at his lips as Zhane uncovered his eyes and let his hands fall. He turned, pretending to scowl when he caught sight of the smirk on the Silver Ranger's face. "I could have hurt you, you know."
Zhane laughed aloud. "Sure you could have," he teased. "Just like I could do this."
Andros blocked his lunge without thinking, catching hold of his friend's arms instead of shoving them away and twisting as Zhane's momentum carried him backward. He landed on top as they tumbled to the ground, and he grinned down at his friend as he pinned him in the grass. "Just like that, huh?"
Zhane tried to look annoyed, but his eyes shone with unabashed adoration. "Yeah," he sighed, lifting his head for Andros' kiss. "Like that."
We never do this anymore. The thought flitted through his mind like an unwelcome visitor, reminding him of how much things had changed in the last two years. No matter how he tried to lose himself in the moment, he couldn't pretend this was real forever.
Zhane took advantage of his distraction to throw his arms out to the sides, upsetting Andros' balance with a classic self-defense move that he ought to have been prepared for. Squirming out of his jacket, the Silver Ranger tackled his friend with a force that sent them both sprawling, rolling over and over in the grass as they scrabbled for dominance.
"Hah!" Zhane crowed, and the strength with which he slammed Andros' hands to the ground belied his physical state. "Shouldn't have closed your eyes!"
...Cool metal pressed against his back, harsher comfort than the twilight dimness in which he lingered. Trapped. Caught between the living and the lost. There was no pain here, only the remnants of what it meant to feel...
Zhane drew back in alarm when he couldn't keep himself from flinching, looking him up and down for the source of the discomfort. "Are you all right? What happened, did I hurt you?"
The questions blended together as they tumbled out, and Andros wanted to smile at his friend's concern. But the fact that Zhane was the first one to ask only underscored his loneliness, and he winced again as the Silver Ranger went to help him sit up. "I'm fine," he said, more brusquely than he'd intended. "It's nothing."
It was nothing. This was nothing.
Ashley Hammond leaned back in her chair and sighed. Closing her eyes on the laptop's tiny screen, she rubbed her fingers against her temples and wished for some distraction.
It came, in the form of a knock on her door, only seconds later. "Come in," she called automatically, opening her eyes and glancing toward the door.
Andros stuck his head in. "Hey," he said, noting the tiredness in her expression and the text on the computer screen in front of her. "How's the paper going?"
"Horribly," she groaned. Then she smiled at her own pessimism and amended, "Well, not horribly. But I'm still a page short of the requirements, and I don't know how to work anything else into the flow of the paper."
"What are you writing about?" he asked curiously, wandering into the room.
"Mars," she said. "I picked Mars."
Andros frowned. "What's Mars?"
Giving him an odd look, she had to stop and think. Of course he wouldn't know the Earth names for all the planets in their solar system. "Mars is the fourth planet out from the sun," she said at last. "The last terrestrial planet before you start seeing gas giants."
"Ah," he said. "Have you ever been there?"
"Of course not," Ashley said, startled. "When would I have gone to Mars?"
"How can you write about a place you've never been?" he countered. "Come on; let's go."
She blinked. "Just--like that?"
"Why not?"
"Well..." Ashley shrugged a little. "I guess because Dimitria had these rules... She was our mentor before we joined you, and one of her rules was that we couldn't use the Power for personal gain. Nothing but Ranger business."
Andros shook his head impatiently. "The Megaship has nothing to do with the Power. It's my ship. And if you say you want to go to Mars, we can go to Mars."
Ashley glanced at her computer screen, then back at her stripe-haired boyfriend. Slamming shut the textbook in her lap, she clicked her 'net browser off and jumped to her feet. "I want to go to Mars," she declared, and he gave her one of his rare smiles.
***
With the Megaship in orbit around Mars, the two of them entered the jump chutes and Glided down to the planet's surface. Fully morphed, their Ranger uniforms protected them from the temperature and supplied their own breathable atmosphere.
They landed on the edge of the night side, in twilight just lightening to dawn as the sun peered over the horizon. It brightened the sky around it to a deep crimson, darker than any seen on Earth, and cast its cold rays across the haze-red sky.
"Wow," Ashley breathed, staring around at the unending plains in wonder. "You can see forever here..."
"About two or three kilometers, it looks like," Andros corrected, gazing off toward the horizon.
"Spoilsport," she muttered, giving him a shove. The fine dust kicked up by their boots lingered in the air, and the only breaks in the open, rust-colored fields were the boulders strewn haphazardly across the landscape. Their steps were lighter here than on the Megaship, kept at Earth normal gravity, and she couldn't resist jumping a few times.
Andros's visor turned toward her, and she knew he was watching with amusement. "This is beautiful," she said, holding her arms out and turning around.
"If you say so," he answered neutrally, and she made a face at him even though she knew he couldn't see it.
"Look, Mr-I've-visited-hundreds-of-worlds-and-not-one-of-them-was-as-good-as-KO-35--" She stopped to take a breath. "Just because it's different doesn't mean it isn't beautiful!"
He glanced upward, and she followed his gaze without conscious thought. "You want beautiful?" he said softly. "That's beautiful."
The last of the stars had been long obscured by the rising sun, but Mars' two moons were barely visible outlines against the dust-shrouded sky. The captured asteroids almost seemed to touch as the one caught up to the other in their celestial dance, and the atmosphere surrounded them with a gentle glow.
"That is beautiful," she agreed in a whisper. Searching the rest of the sky, she asked, "Where's Earth?"
He pointed sunward. "Over there. You wouldn't be able to see it; we came almost straight out from the sun to get here."
*A new Earth,* she thought, amused by the idea no matter how far away it was. From here, it would show phases only through a telescope, but she liked the feeling of knowing it was there.
They stood there in silence for a few moments more, until Andros asked, "What are you writing about Mars?"
"The possibility of life," she said dreamily, still caught up in the marvel of a new world.
"Oh, there's no life here," he said, with such certainty that she blinked.
Cocking her head at him, she asked, "How do you know?"
"Who in their right mind would evolve next door to you guys?"
"She's beautiful." Andros stared morosely into the darkness, broken only by the monitor lights and the eerie glow of the cryostasis tube. "She's like a holostar, you know?
"Stella Quasinella," he added suddenly. "That's who she'd remind you of. In the one with the voyagers and the frontier raids... the one Eltare got all upset about when it came out? I thought they were going to shut Carie-Sun Productions down for good."
The steady, monotone beep of the biomonitor was his only answer. He considered the data displayed there for a moment, not really seeing it but knowing any changes would have caught his eye already. The frost patterns on the plastic casing were thicker than he remembered, but he resisted the temptation to melt them away.
"Zhane..." The name sounded too quiet, even in this chamber of echoes. It was as though the person it represented had slipped too far away to be called back by name alone. "What am I supposed to do?
"She likes me," he confessed. "At least, I think she does. I'm pretty sure. I don't know... when she hugs me, it's like... it's like I'm not alone anymore.
"That's how you used to make me feel," he told the cryostasis tube softly. "I miss that, Zhane. I miss it so much. I know I always wanted to be alone, but never--never like this."
It had been a long time since someone had smiled at him the way Ashley did. It had been even longer since he'd felt someone's arms around him. He had friends, fellow soldiers, people who looked out for him--but he worked alone. He had thought that was the way it had to be, until his partner was strong enough to join him again.
He had thought he could get through this. He had work to do, people to save, DECA to talk to when it got to be too much. His partner would be back, someday. Until then, he would wait.
"Two years," he whispered. He felt tears sting his eyelids as he stared into the ice and time that separated him from his best friend. "How could you stay away so long, Zhane? How could you let me think you'd be back, when you knew all along what you were doing?
"You didn't save my life." He squeezed his eyes shut, determined to keep the tears from falling this time. He had had enough of tears. "You took me with you."
Opening his eyes again, his fingers clenched on his helmet as he told the cryotube, "I want it back, Zhane. I need my life back. I know you're not gone, not completely, but I can't live like this forever."
His eyes darted to the biomonitor, almost daring it to flare in retaliation. But the beeping continued: slow, steady, and unaltered. He wasn't gone. But he wasn't here, either. It seemed like he was here less every day.
The worst part was, he didn't know whether he meant himself or his friend.
"I'm sorry," he said, swallowing hard. He pressed his fingers to his lips, then laid his hand on the top of the cryostasis tube. The ice crystals started to retreat as the warmth burrowed through the frost toward the faint flicker of life trapped beneath.
"I love you," he whispered.
Andros pulled his hand away before the numbness could make his fingers stiff. Turning slowly, he made his way out of the healing chamber without a backward glance.