Special
by
CA Elenath

Disclaimer: Someone other than me owns the Power Rangers SPD crew. But I suppose the pink frosting could be considered an original character, couldn’t it?

Notes: Takes place during the party scene at the end of “Stakeout”, obviously. This has been more frivolity on my part.

- -

Sky was the only person at the party snacking solely off the vegetable tray despite the numerous other good treats people had brought. The Blue SPD Ranger was as strict about his eating habits as he was about everything else, which meant he probably hadn’t tried the frothy centerpiece of her birthday celebration—the cake. Sure enough, there was one cut slice left untouched on a paper plate on the table, presumably his.

That just didn’t sit right with Sydney. She kept pretty healthy eating habits herself, but she always happily indulged in sweeter treats whenever occasion called for it. It was just tradition for everyone to have a bit of cake on a birthday, and Sky somehow seemed left out of the celebration by not partaking of the dessert with everyone else. It figured; he was always the loner, the one standing apart. Well, not on her birthday. She was the birthday girl, and today anything she wanted went. Without exception.

Sydney wandered over to the picnic table, intending to rescue the slice of cake from its uneaten fate when she found something better. The flower-frosted rectangular cake was only half-consumed—most of the left half was gone, but someone had rebelliously cut off a corner from the right edge. That left only one corner slice left. The corners on any rectangular cake always had double the amount of frosting found on any other edge piece. Perfect.

She quickly cut away that doubly-frosted piece and slipped it onto a plate. Grabbing a plastic fork, she headed over to the silent Blue Ranger, who was munching on a baby carrot as he watched the other three Rangers play a cut-throat game of Frisbee. He had been playing with them not more than five minutes ago, but he’d only gotten involved because Jack had launched the disk at him with practically no forewarning—a very blatant challenge. Sky had answered it very swiftly, but now he was back to brooding beside the picnic table. Sydney walked right up to him, cake and fork held up pointedly.

“You haven’t had any cake,” she said accusingly, as if it were some great crime on his part.

Sky swallowed his mouthful of vegetable and looked at her. “You know I don’t eat sweets, Sydney,” he said simply.

She did know, not that the minor detail would have deterred her. “You do today,” she said stubbornly. “Come on, Sky. I bet you’ll like it.”

He gave the pink confection a disparaging once-over. “Do you know how much sugar is in there?”

Sydney rolled her eyes. “It’s not going to kill you.”

“Not right away,” he agreed, taking a drink of fruit punch from the plastic cup in his hand.

“Do you know how much sugar is probably in that punch you’re drinking?” she countered.

“Probably not as much as in that mound of flour and frosting you’re holding.”

Sydney frowned at him in annoyance, not appreciating the unsavory description of her beautiful birthday cake. As usually happened though, her full lower lip curled upward slightly the longer she held the expression, making what might have been a menacing frown look more like a petulant pout—a face that was nearly impossible to take seriously. It did make the Blue Ranger soften ever so subtly as his gaze flickered between the cake to her mouth, but he wasn’t relenting.

“Fine,” Sydney shrugged, and made as if to put the plate and the fork down. “If you’re not going to eat it—” she set only the fork on the table. “—you can wear it.”

Catching Sky completely off guard, she ran a finger through the frosted edge of the cake and deposited a dollop of pink cream on the tip of his nose. He looked completely bewildered for a moment, but it quickly transformed into an irritated glare. Sydney merely smirked back, unrepentant.

“That’s for defying the birthday girl.”

Before Sky could retort, Jack’s voice cut in from the side, “Aren’t we a little too old for finger painting with our food?”

Sydney and Sky glanced up in surprise, just in time for Bridge to capture the moment on his camera. Instead of protesting the less-than-dignified picture, however, Sky took advantage of the Pink Ranger’s distraction to retaliate, smearing a bigger glob of frosting on her nose.

“Hey!” she whirled and glowered at him, but the expression was more comical than dark from the cake trimming that now adorned her face. Sky merely grinned back at her.

Bridge dutifully snapped another picture.

“It goes well with the uniform,” remarked Z casually. She had been the first to comment on Sky’s dreary choice of wardrobe—or perhaps the lack of choice therein—for Sydney’s party. Unfortunately, her words now gave the Pink Ranger an evil idea.

“I’ll bet it does,” said Sydney mischievously, and smeared a pink frosting-laden handprint on Sky’s uniform, right over the ‘SPD’ insignia.

The other three Rangers choked back a startled gasp and laugh while Bridge hazarded another photo. They watched trepidly for the Blue Ranger’s reaction, but he, for once, seemed disinclined to have one. Instead of looking outraged like they’d expected, Sky merely glanced down at his cream-coated uniform as if he didn’t quite know what to make of it.

“A definite improvement,” said Z thoughtfully after a long silent pause.

“It’s a good color on you,” added Bridge, whom was paying more attention to the similarly pink swirls rising in the faint aura surrounding his aloof roommate—the color that meant affection.

Sky just shook his head and reached for a napkin, first wiping the frosting from his nose and then scrubbing at the layer on his uniform. He quickly found, however, that like most spreadable treats, the frosting was leaving behind a very stubborn residue on the fabric.

“Just lose the jacket, Sky,” said Jack, picking up on his teammates’ exasperation. “I think that was the original purpose.”

The Blue Ranger gave him a withering look.

Sydney sighed, dismayed to see the tension flaring between those two on her birthday of all days. “Come on, Sky. We’re just trying to get you to lighten up a little. It’s supposed to be a party. My party.” She paused. “I want you to have fun.”

The Blue Ranger just looked at her, his expression blank and almost uncomprehending, and lingering so long that she started to shift uncomfortably. He had never done this before, or at least never so openly, and she wished, more so at that moment than any other time before, that she knew what was going on in his mind.

In reality, no more than a few seconds had passed, thought it felt much longer to Sydney. The stillness was broken when Sky shrugged indifferently and pulled off his jacket, tossing it in a nearby chair. The gesture startled her, though it wasn’t surprising in itself.

No, what was surprising was when he reached out and wiped the frosting from her nose with a finger, then popped it in his mouth. Sydney could only stare in stunned silence.

“Not bad,” he said a bit too casually, as if they hadn’t just had a confrontation over a slice of cake. As if he hadn’t just eaten a blob of frosting off her nose. “Are you happy now?”

“I—” Sydney struggled to find her voice again. “I don’t know. Are you happy?”

From the corner of her eye, she saw the other three Rangers gracefully sneaking away, leaving her and Sky alone. While she was grateful for their consideration, now there was nothing besides the Blue Ranger for her to focus on, and having all her attention focused on Sky had never been a very good idea before.

“I wish you’d told us earlier about your birthday,” said Sky, sounding curiously annoyed. “I didn’t have a chance to get you anything.”

“You don’t have to get me anything,” answered Sydney, perplexed that he would be bothered by something so trivial. They had known each other for years now; if Sky really cared that much for birthdays, he would have asked about hers a long time ago. That couldn’t really be what was making him so moody, could it?

“You guys were sweet enough to throw me this surprise party,” Sydney went on, watching his expression. “I know I made a big deal about the lavish dinner my parents planned for me, but it wasn’t just the glitz and glamour I was looking forward to. It was feeling special, and having people make a fuss over me because it was my birthday.” She smiled. “And I do feel special, because you guys cared enough to try to make it up to me.”

Sky, never one for sentiments, looked skeptical but nodded anyway, taking her words at face value.

“Buuut…” Sydney added. “If you really feel that badly about not getting me a present, you can make it up to me with a birthday hug.” Her smile turned a little impish. “Then maybe I’ll reconsider making you play musical chairs with us later.”

Sky rolled his eyes at that last sentence like she knew he would, but then tentatively reached out and put his arms around her. The gesture was awkward at first, until she wrapped her arms around him in return and settled contentedly into the embrace. She had never been this close to him before, and she was surprised at how good it felt. Resting her cheek against his chest briefly, she let out a tiny sigh.

Sky shifted incrementally, and she lifted her head, a hot blush warming her face as she realized she was probably getting too comfortable there. She was sure he meant to pull away…and then she felt the tension melt from his shoulders and his arms settle more naturally against her back. Having not anticipated that at all, now she became tense, her face growing even warmer than before.

“Happy birthday, Sydney,” she heard him say, sounding perfectly normal, perfectly unaffected, and then he let her go.

Her face felt so warm, she wondered if she didn’t resemble a tomato at that moment. “Thanks,” she murmured quietly, not daring to meet his gaze. Already she was itching to be in his arms again, to fit warmly and cozily in his embrace and just stay there until the end of the party. Or maybe just forever.

As she stood there feeling embarrassed, elated, and full of longing all at once, she declared in her mind that this had been her best birthday up to date. And when she finally found the courage to glance up and saw Sky’s puzzled expression over her red face, she relished his apparent cluelessness as well. Yes, definitely the best birthday ever.

Chapter Two - Falling For You

It was always so much easier in the stories.

The girl’s gaze would catch the guy’s at just the right moment from across the room, or the guy would know exactly the perfect thing to say when they ended up next to each other in line, or the girl would smile shyly and the guy would smile back, or, when push came to shove, the girl would accidentally fall into the guy’s lap and the guy wouldn’t mind at all. However the beginning happened, whatever came next was always as natural as day and night.

For Sydney, the first three scenarios never happened, and the fourth just wasn’t an option. A world class fencer who was a Ranger on top of that simply did not trip that easily, and it would be mortifyingly obvious what she was trying to do. As much as she wanted something to happen, Sydney Drew refused to make a fool of herself, especially for an infatuation that might never come to fruition. More and more, however, she was realizing how few options she had.

It was the final hour before lights out, and the Rangers were lounging together in the cadet commons room until curfew dictated that they had to retire to their own quarters. Bridge, Z, and Jack were sprawled in a circle on the floor, betting popcorn pieces and their morphers in a high-stakes game of poker. A smattering of Bridge’s and Jack’s comic books lay scattered around them, temporarily forgotten in the excitement. Sydney had feigned disinterest in the card game and opted to curl up on one of the couches with a magazine. Sky sat on the couch opposite her, completely engrossed in some chapter of the SPD manual.

Sydney wished she could say the same for her magazine.

“You are the worst bluffer,” Z was saying to Bridge with a laugh, smacking down triumphantly what was presumably the winning hand.

“I probably am,” Bridge agreed, looking curiously smug. “Lucky for me, I don’t need to bluff,” and laid down the true winning hand of the game. While Jack and Z gaped at his diamond-studded straight flush, he reached out to gather his earnings—a handful of popcorn, two comics, and either Jack or Z’s morpher.

“Should’ve known better than to play poker against a psychic,” said Jack, looking a little chagrined as he leaned back in his beanbag chair.

“I always was looking for a challenge,” said Z breezily, crunching into a popcorn kernel from what was left of her stash as she glanced at Bridge. “I’ll beat you next time.”

The Green Ranger merely smiled as an acceptance of her challenge, and popped a kernel of his own in his mouth. Z smiled back, an expression that reached all the way up to her eyes.

Sky suddenly shifted his position on the couch, drawing Sydney’s eyes away from the magazine page she wasn’t really reading. He pulled one long leg up beneath the other so that he was sitting cross-legged on the seat. Never once did his gaze stray away from the book in his hand.

Sydney sighed. A hot chocolate sounded very comforting at that moment, and she was itching to find something else to focus her attention on anyway. She set her magazine aside and hopped up, sidling her way through the narrow channel between the two ends of the couches, and over to the food replicator.

The device gave her a strawberry smoothie instead. The frothy pinkness brought back memories of her surprise birthday party the day before, memories of why she was so discontent tonight. She returned to the couch with her mistaken drink, too distracted to fight the replicator for what she’d originally wanted. She re-curled up on the couch and started to reach for her magazine.

Sky’s eyes weren’t moving. They were fixed on one point and kind of faraway, definitely not the look of someone avidly reading. Sydney wondered if he could possibly be thinking of what she was thinking of.

She decided to go annoy him. The sooner he did or said something to irritate her, the sooner her feelings would become more manageable, and she’d stop feeling so restless. Setting her smoothie down on the table, she untucked herself and stood, having every intention of plopping down next to Sky as disruptively as she could.

What happened next had to be karmic, or the unfunniest trick fate could ever play. A small voice in the back of her mind told her it was a jinx she’d brought about herself.

She took one step forward, and then her foot inexplicably caught on something. She toppled over, everything happening too fast for her brain to immediately register what had gone wrong. All she knew she was that she was suddenly horizontal, with someone’s arm under her arms, the other arm around her waist, and most of her torso in Sky’s lap. His knee was pressing against her stomach, the pressure of which would have been a lot more painful if he hadn’t caught her the way he did. She lay still for a moment, too stunned to react. Her mind was preoccupied with how mortified she felt and with nasty curses at whatever had caused this to happen.

Eventually she gathered enough of her wits together to right herself again, with a little help from Sky.

“Feeling klutzy again, Sydney?” the Blue Ranger asked. His tone was mild, almost disinterested, and it was probably her own embarrassment rather than his apathetic words that made her suddenly irritable.

“Shove it,” she grumbled in return, tugging on her uniform top to smooth out the wrinkles it had gathered in her tumble.

“Are you okay, Syd?” asked Jack, sounding concerned but also baffled. So it wasn’t just her who found her fall unusual.

“I’m fine,” she answered, forcing a cheery smile. “Klutzy moment.” In her mind she was daring the Blue Ranger to add another snide comment after her self-admitted clumsiness, even as she tried to guess the color of her face from the amount of heat she felt in it.

He didn’t. He merely bent down to retrieve the fallen handbook from the floor and resumed his feigned reading.

Sydney felt both huffy and relieved inside, and returned to her couch—carefully—picking up her drink again. Thankfully no one said anything more, and they all seemed to forget about the incident much easier than she could. That was perfect, because all she wanted to do then was go to her room, but she didn’t want to seem like she was running away.

Just to be safe, she lingered a little longer, downing the rest of her smoothie, her eyes focused on Jack, Z, and Bridge’s poker game the whole time. When the glass was empty, she bounded over the back of her couch, and headed towards her bedroom door.

“I’m going to bed,” she announced to the room at large. “I need my beauty sleep.”

She saw Z roll her eyes, and a chorus of “Night, Syds” followed her into her room. Sky’s voice was noticeably absent from it.

Chapter Three - Schemes and Poker Games

“I saw that,” Jack commented idly, eyes never leaving the cards in his hand.

Z froze, thinking of the ace she had slipped up her sleeve. “Saw what?”

She, Bridge, and Jack had the rec room to themselves now. Sky had left minutes earlier, drawn away by some message delivered by a C squad cadet. That was the second interesting event to happen in one night, the first being Sydney’s mysteriously well placed tumble. Actually, it wasn’t that mysterious to Jack, who had seen the Yellow Ranger’s hand reach out and grab Sydney’s ankle.

“She could have busted her head open or something,” the Red Ranger tsked, but his expression was hardly devoid of amusement.

Z heaved a mental sigh of relief. “She could not. I had everything under control.”

The look she exchanged with Bridge did not escape Jack’s notice, who glanced from one to the other warily. “What are you two conspiring about this time?”

“Who, us?” asked Bridge, completely unconvincingly. “We’re not conspiring anything. For us to be conspiring something, we’d have to have a plan for something, and we don’t. At least, not anymore. We did plan to make Syd trip and fall…and pray that Sky catches her like she wanted, but obviously that plan is done and we don’t have another one, and that is why we can’t be conspiring something.”

Jack was mildly impressed that Bridge was able to bring his long-winded answer back to its original point. “How do you know that’s what she wanted? She looked pretty embarrassed to me. I actually felt kind of bad for her.”

Z rolled her eyes. “Trust me. It was a favor.”

Jack grinned. “I’m not so sure Syd would agree.”

“She was thinking about it,” Bridge began, which made Jack raise his eyebrow at him. The Green Ranger hurried to explain. “Really hard. She was totally focused on the idea, and how that’s how it always happens in stories? She was projecting her thoughts too, in that way that people do when they hope someone’s listening. But, usually they’re hoping someone like God or destiny is listening, and not…er, probably not me.”

Z rolled her eyes, but smiled at him nevertheless. “I think you were the next best thing in that case. How long did you say they’ve been like this?”

“Since the three of us started training together.”

Jack scrutinized the cards in his hand critically. “And nothing’s happened yet?”

“A lot of sly glances,” Z offered, while privately wondering how she was going to get the ace out of her sleeve.

“Usually when they think the other one isn’t looking,” Bridge added.

“So you’re sure it’s not a one way street?” Jack staked another comic book and tossed it in the winnings pile in the center. “Neither of them seemed too thrilled to be up on each other tonight.”

Having nothing else of significant value left, Z tossed in her morpher. “Good acting on both their parts. I’ll give them that.”

The Green Ranger gave an unexpected scoff. “Syd would have melted if Sky’d been a little nicer.”

“Melted, huh?” Jack’s amusement was evident. “Romance novel much, Bridge?”

“Cookbook, actually.”

“And how would you know about romance novels, Jack?” Z smirked at her best friend, who just scratched the back of his neck and glanced down quickly as his cards. “You know Syd isn’t going to object to shows of affection. Remember her birthday party?”

“Mr. Straight-laced, workaholic Ranger by day and night and weekend…and holiday and special occasion and—”

“So are you two volunteering to play cupid?” Jack interrupted before the Green Ranger could go any further.

Z shrugged nonchalantly. “It was Bridge’s idea.”

At the same time, Bridge answered, “If the opportunity comes up.”

The two glanced at each other, their gazes lingering plenty longer than was necessary, considering Z wasn’t psychic. Still, an entire host of messages seemed to be relayed in that single look, not that this was the first time they’d done it.

Jack hid a snicker behind his cards. Personally, he thought the soap opera going on between the Pink and Blue Rangers wasn’t nearly as interesting as the interplay between Bridge and Z—Z, his best friend since childhood, once a hardened street dweller with every intention of looking out for number one. He thought about how hard she would hit him if he teased her about getting soft, and decided that the moment wasn’t worth interrupting. Not even to tell Z he could see the ace she’d filched peeping out of her sleeve.

x-x-x-x-x

Sydney sighed as she placed the fuzzy pink receiver back in its equally fuzzy cradle. Her parents were having a luncheon at the country club for her that coming Saturday, to make up for the birthday party she’d had to miss the week before. The idea didn’t excite her very much because one, a luncheon at the club wouldn’t nearly be as exciting as an evening party on the town, and two, she just wasn’t in a celebratory mood. She hoped that would change by the end of the week, but at the moment, she wasn’t very hopeful.

The clock on her phone read 7:35 am. It was a little earlier than she preferred to get up on a day when they had no morning training session, but not that much earlier. Maybe she could use that extra time to do something a little elaborate with her hair. She just knew she wasn’t going to go back to sleep; she was no less restless than she’d been the night before.

Grabbing her shower kit and bathrobe, Sydney headed for the bathroom. Just as she was about to go in, she heard the door to the men’s bathroom open and was surprised to see Sky walk out. His uniform jacket was absent, he had a towel thrown over one shoulder, and his hair was damp. He also had the tiniest spot of shaving cream left on his chin, which became a point of fixation for Sydney.

“Good morning, Sky,” she said with a pleasant smile, a lot more pleasant than she actually felt.

“Morning, Syd.”

“Aren’t you up a little late today?”

Usually the Blue Ranger was finished with his mile jog, breakfast, and some morning chore by this time.

“I was up late last night.”

“Doing what?”

“Helping a C squad cadet with a project.”

Sydney raised an eyebrow. That struck her as a very unusual activity for Sky. “What kind of project?”

Sky shrugged. “Just something.”

“Oh.” She didn’t have the energy to pry for more details. Her gaze wandered back down to the spot of cream on his chin, and to the place above it where she knew a dimple appeared the rare times he smiled. “What are you doing this weekend?”

She could honestly say she’d asked that without thinking at all.

“I’m on duty,” Sky answered, and after a pause, “Why?”

If work was involved, it didn’t matter what she said next. “Just wondering,” she could feel her false pleasantness fading, and she decided it would be best to retreat. “I’ll see you later.”

She hurried into the bathroom, heading straight for a shower stall and turning on the water full blast so it would heat up faster. Up until her birthday party the previous week, she’d been sure that Sky felt about her the same way she felt about him, even if he never acted upon those feelings. In reality, Sky wasn’t behaving any differently this week than he usually did, and it was probably her own frustration that made her less able to tolerate his stoic attitude.

She wanted something to happen; she wanted it so bad she was getting cranky. If she was cranky, people would notice and ask her what was wrong. Then she’d have to tell them and they’d either laugh or offer some useless advice—useless because normal relationship advice just didn’t work in Sky’s case—and then she’d get more frustrated and want to use her iron fist on someone.

A girl with a fat crush and a metal fist is a force to be reckoned with, she thought in rueful amusement as she stripped and stepped beneath the soothing hot spray of water. Unless of course, you’re the object of that crush.

The steaming shower made her feel a little better, and for the rest of her morning routine, she was able to distract herself with ideas about how she wanted to style her hair.

I wonder if I should go brunette…

x-x-x-x-x

“Jack?” Z stuck her head in his room. “You’re not doing anything this weekend, right?”

The Red Ranger was standing by the window, holding a silver memo-gram. He held it up with a wry expression. “Not anymore. I just got assigned weekend duty.”

“I know. I had Bridge switch yours and Sky’s shifts this month.”

Jack gave the Yellow Ranger an ‘oh really’ look, and placed his hands on his hips. “Why thank you for asking me first, Z. Why on earth would you do that?”

Z rolled her eyes and leaned against the door jamb. “Syd’s parents are having a birthday lunch for her on Saturday, and she was bugging me this morning to go with her. I told her thanks but no thanks, I’m not really cut out for the country club scene.”

Jack shrugged. “Why not? Bet the food’s good.”

Z just snorted in response.

“So what’s Syd’s birthday lunch have to do with me working the weekend?”

“I told her to bully Sky into going with her.”

“What makes you think he’ll give in?”

“Better chance if he doesn’t have to work.”

“Point.” Jack cocked his head at her and folded his arms, an amused grin on his face. “I was sure you were going to let those two run circles around each other till kingdom come. Why the good Samaritan act now?”

The Yellow Ranger looked exasperated “Please! If I thought dealing with a perky Syd was bad, try dealing with one that can’t get what she wants.”

“Ouch,” Jack deadpanned, tossing the memo-gram onto the desk. “I’m so glad I could help you out then.”

Z smiled sweetly at his dry tone, “You’re a prince among men, Jack,” and disappeared from his doorway as quickly as she had appeared in it.

Chapter Four - Movie Night

The only sound in the room was that of bristles being pulled through long blonde hair already thoroughly untangled. She sat cross-legged and pajama-clad on her bed, a faraway look in her eyes that said she saw nothing for the moment but the thoughts in her head. Even when the bedroom door slid open, it couldn’t be said that her reverie was completely broken.

“Hey.” Bridge stood on the threshold, also dressed in nightclothes and looking a little hesitant when he saw her pensive expression. He gave a tentative wave. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” She straightened up a little and tried to put on a more welcoming face.

He shuffled into the room and perched on the end of her bed, holding out a small but thick yellow envelope.

“I had the pictures I took at your party printed,” he said. “I know you like collecting actual photographs.”

His thoughtfulness cheered her a little, and she accepted the envelope with a warm and grateful smile. “Thank you, Bridge.”

“No problem. You’re coming to Movie Night tonight, aren’t you?” He sounded hopeful.

Movie Nights were an event planned every so often by a bored cadet. A projector and screen were set up in the largest of the dormitory rec lounges, and cadets of all levels could go and relax with a flick and whatever snacks were provided.

She didn’t really feel like going, but Z had already left, and the alternative of spending the evening alone in her room with her thoughts was even less appealing.

“Yeah, I’m going,” she replied, but resumed brushing her hair, slowly and meticulously. “I’ll be there in a little bit.”

The Green Ranger’s expression lit up, obviously glad she was going, but perhaps a bit overly so. “We’ll save you a seat.”

“Thanks.” She forced a smile, hoping to get rid of him though she knew she couldn’t hide her true emotions from him. It was possible he wanted her to attend Movie Night so she wouldn’t be sitting alone with her moody feelings. But then again, Bridge was the biggest movie buff amongst the Rangers, and a genuine advocate of Movie Nights.

After he left, she set down her hairbrush and picked up the yellow envelope, pulling open the clasp and shaking the stack of photos into her palm. They were matte, which she preferred over the normal glossy finish, but she didn’t know how the Green Ranger could have known that. Fond memories of the surprise party sparked in her mind as she browsed through the photos, improving her mood even further.

The first dozen or so were “scenery” shots of the celebration—the gazebo, the giant banner, the picnic table stacked with all her presents, and her beautiful birthday cake while it was still whole. There were also several shots of the guests mingling, all so varied that she imagined the camera must have been passed along to several handlers. Her favorite, which brought a genuine smile to her face, was an up-close self-portrait by Jack, who grinned rakishly at the camera while holding up the cupcake he’d given her like it was a golden apple.

Someone had snapped a few pictures of the Rangers playing Frisbee. While most were distance shots, there was one memorable one of Z mid-somersault and upside-down in the air, her skirt flared out like a giant yellow fan. Sydney set that one aside along with the picture of Jack, knowing both were one hundred percent collage material.

The next two photos made her pause. Both were of herself and Sky, the severity of first his scathing glare and then hers completely undermined by the frosting they had smeared on each other. He was grinning in the second picture, even as she shot daggers at him with her eyes. He was grinning the same way he did when he’d dumped water on her head, a moment she’d never forgotten.

Sky looked like a dork whenever he grinned. His more typical stern expression probably made other female hearts flutter, but she, being his teammate, saw entirely too much of it. Like precious metals and gemstones, she loved his smiles because they were so rare.

A slow, quiet sigh of longing filled the silence as she gazed at the photo a minute longer, then set it aside, facedown. It would be an old, treasured memory one day—or collateral for blackmail.

He had lied to her. She had seen their schedules earlier that day, and he did not have a shift in the coming weekend. At first she’d been confused; Sky didn’t make mistakes like that when it came to work. But he also wasn’t a very good liar. At worst, he just wouldn’t say anything at all instead of saying something untrue.

Or so she’d thought.

There was very likely a simple answer for the miscommunication, but her mind wasn’t being very reasonable these days when it came to Sky-related affairs. The sensible thing to do would be to just ask him again, about the weekend, about everything. Confront him with her feelings, and when she had her answer, if she had to, she could take it out on Krybots in the simulator. Or in battle, whichever were unlucky enough to meet her first.

x-x-x-x-x

As promised, the other Rangers had saved her a seat, sort of. They obligingly crammed in closer together on the couch they occupied to make a space for her at one end, and Sydney neatly tucked herself into it. Beside her, Jack made a show of leaning back in his seat, putting his arms around both her and Z.

“There is no better place for a man to be,” he said with a suave smile, “than between two pretty ladies.”

Pink and Yellow Rangers rolled their eyes at each other behind his head and gave him a mutual shove. He removed his arm from around Z, and she leaned in closer towards Bridge, who sat at the other end of the couch.

Sydney glanced at the screen briefly before leaning in towards Jack to ask in a whisper, “What are we watching?”

“Something about killer spiders invading a small island,” he whispered back, and her nose immediately wrinkled in disgust.

“Ew!”

Her reaction just made him chuckle, and from somewhere he procured a small, rectangular box of candy. “Hot Tamale?”

She accepted one piece before the box was passed back down the couch. Then she shucked off her slippers and tucked up her feet as she tried to nestle herself comfortably into her seat. Peanuts the Elephant squeaked when she hugged him to her chest.

The first half of the movie passed with minimal arachnid appearances, but when the creatures really started to surface in swarms, Sydney found herself peeping out at the screen from behind her stuffed elephant. Her friends were snickering at her, and Jack kept teasing her by walking his fingers across the back of her neck and on her shoulders. She grew used to it, but he wouldn’t quit until she swatted his hand and leaned away from him in her seat, pointedly ignoring him.

She heard his quiet laughter, and then watched as he got up and left the room. She figured it had something to do with the now empty two liter bottle of soda that sat by his feet, and took the opportunity to stretch out a little. Unfortunately, she happened to glance up at the same moment a huge spider dropped down into the frame of the movie, its grotesque black shape filling up most of the screen. Several cadets in the room yelped in surprise, including Sydney, who quickly pressed Peanuts against her face again.

“Chill, Syd. It’s just a spider,” Z chided, despite the fact that she too had started at the spider’s appearance.

Jack returned, and Sydney pressed herself against the armrest to let him squeeze back into his place between her and Z.

“Yeah. And they help eat all the other bugs that might be crawling around,” Bridge offered.

“Spiders are creepy, disgusting, unwanted house pests with too many legs to help them get away,” she grumbled, her words muffled by the elephant on her face. Her friends laughed at her, but a pair of hands took her shoulders consolingly and gently pulled her back against the couch anyway.

“You guys are awful,” she sniffed into Peanuts’ soft, worn fur. Jack rubbed her shoulder amiably in truce, and she let herself settle back against his arm.

The screams coming from the movie told her that there must still be scenes of rampant spider attack going on, so she continued to peep out from behind her elephant. There were just way too many spider swarms for her liking. At one point, Jack started twiddling with a lock of her hair, creating a tingling sensation on her head that at the moment felt too much like bugs creeping around up there.

“Cut it out!” she hissed, slapping at his hand. She’d thought her friends were done ribbing her, but apparently not. The offending hand retreated.

Movie Night so wasn’t worth this, she groused mentally, but she had to admit, she was enjoying their company a lot more than she would have enjoyed being alone tonight, however unforgiving they were being about her fear of spiders. I’m so glad I brought Peanuts.

“Outta my seat, Tate,” said Jack suddenly.

She froze. That didn’t make any sense. At least, not any kind of sense she wanted to realize.

Calmly she untucked herself and sat up, turning around in an unassuming manner even as her hands clenched in a death grip on poor Peanuts. She was met with a faintly amused but mostly bewildered gaze from Sky...who was sitting beside her. Jack was behind the couch, heading towards the other end to perch on the armrest next to Bridge.

“I didn’t know you were so touchy about your hair,” said the Blue Ranger. “But then again, you do spend three hours every morning rearranging it.”

Her mind was torn between being embarrassed, angry, or indignant in addition to being shocked. She had to settle for a secondary response, one that gave in to her frustration—she punched Sky in the shoulder. He winced, and had to hold up his hands to stop her from digging in with another one.

“What was that for?” he demanded, looking genuinely annoyed now.

“Because you deserved it!” was all she could come up with. She had no identifiable reason why.

Then she noticed the splint on the middle finger of his left hand. “What happened to your hand?”

“Project,” he muttered.

Someone in the movie let out a bloodcurdling scream.

He abruptly rose to his feet. “Which I have to get back to.”

“Sky—”

He wouldn’t know you thought he was someone else.

Two steps out the door, he actually paused and glanced back at her.

Stay, she mouthed silently to him.

He hesitated, then shook his head and disappeared from the door frame.

Rejection had never been so blue.

Chapter Five - Falling Out

Saturday morning found Sydney critically eyeing two potential outfits for her birthday luncheon at the country club. One was a gauzy, white summer dress with accents of pink, pretty and feminine, almost nymph-like in its design, and which she’d been looking forward to wearing ever since she laid eyes on it. The other was a pastel spring jacket and white Capri pants, a much less fussy outfit that was still cute, but was more for appearances for her father’s business exec friends and their families, whom were sure to be at the club.

She would have liked a second opinion, but Z was already gone, out on a picnic in the park with Bridge, if she recalled correctly. The Yellow Ranger couldn’t be convinced to step foot inside a country club, and Sydney never did find her opportunity to ask Sky again about his weekend, so it looked like she would be attending the luncheon alone.

It was ten a.m. Her father was sending a limo for her, due to arrive at eleven-thirty, so she had an hour and a half to primp. Normally she would have been up an hour earlier for such things, but when her alarm clock went off that morning, she’d felt unusually listless. Without much thought, she’d hit the snooze button and went back to sleep. Now she needed at least this hour and a half to get ready, and she hoped her ride wouldn’t arrive early.

Grabbing her shower things, she headed for the bathroom. It was eerily quiet in the Academy; most cadets were probably taking advantage of the weekend to sleep in. She paused outside her door, listening to that quiet, wondering if perhaps Sky was doing the same thing. Sometimes he did. If he was still around, maybe it wasn’t too late to ask him to accompany her to the luncheon still.

Since Movie Night on Wednesday, she hadn’t been able to get a moment alone with Sky, or even just a free moment. It felt inappropriate to bring up weekend plans while they were on duty, and in the evenings when she waited for him to join the rest of the Rangers in the rec room after their shifts, he never came. It stung to think that he might be avoiding her, but to be fair, he was avoiding the others just as much. Which meant that he might not be avoiding them at all; he was just extremely occupied.

His refusal of her invitation on Wednesday night had hurt, but how unexpected was it truly? The Blue Ranger never attended Movie Nights, claiming they bored him to the point of IQ loss, so what hope did she have that he would have stayed that particular night, just because she asked him to? Why had he bothered to show up at all?

That was his arm around me, his shoulder I leaned against. He sat next to me and had his hand in my hair. The gesture that had been annoying at the time was blatantly affectionate in retrospect. But why did he act like he didn’t care the rest of the time?

Because he’s dense and schizophrenic.

Because that’s Sky.

Because that’s what made him stand out; he didn’t fall at your feet and tell you you were good enough. He challenged you to be even better.

She was losing her perspective on a man who’d been one of her best friends for years. The well-established equilibrium between sharp repartee and unspoken protectivenessthat was their friendship was upset.

Is this why you don’t fall for your best friend? Or maybe just Sky. She smiled ruefully. But especially if it’s both!

The night lock on Sky’s door wasn’t set. It automatically slid open as she stepped up to it.

There was a girl on his bed. Petite, with short honey-blonde hair and wearing a white tracksuit. She sat in the middle of a swirl of unmade sheets and blankets, surveying what looked like a schematic drawing of the Academy in her hands. Sydney’s entrance clearly startled her, but her deer-in-headlights expression easily smoothed into an amiable smile.

“Good morning, ma’am.”

It took Sydney a moment to figure out she was a lower ranking cadet.

“Are you supposed to be in here?” the Pink Ranger asked suspiciously.

The girl bobbed her head. “He’s in the shower if you…” she paused, seeming to catch herself as she lapsed into an overly-familiar tone. She continued more formally, “I’m assuming you’re looking for Cadet Tate?”

Sydney nodded. “Are you the one with the project he’s helping out with?”

“I am,” she answered, and for whatever reason, smiled. “It’s very nice of him to take the time.”

You’re telling me. “What’s the project?”

“It’s…” she glanced at her schematic. “I’m attempting to revise the current system of security checkpoints in the Academy.”

“Do they need revising?”

“It was a challenge issued by one of my instructors, in light of the latest security breach.”

She must have been referring to the incident with Dru. Most of the Academy didn’t know the details behind the near-assassination of the Commander, namely Sky’s connection to it. Sydney wondered if this girl was somehow privy to that information, if she had sought out Sky’s help because she knew he was the person with the most insight into that security breach.

Or if she sought him out for other reasons.

“Sounds very ambitious,” said Sydney lamely, more to fill the hollow, awkward pause than for any other reason. “If you see Sky…er, Cadet Tate, tell him I’m looking for him?”

“Will do, ma’am.”

Sydney retreated to her shower, uncertain of what to think of the unexpected encounter. The best thing to do was to just not think at all. It wasn’t that unusual to have friends in other cadets, especially since they all ran amuck in such close quarters.

But this wasn’t about Sky having other friends outside the Rangers. It was about him having friends close enough to be sitting on his bed on Saturday morning in civilian wear.

For once, she envied the Blue Ranger’s ability to just accept things at face value. Then she wouldn’t care about the what-ifs, the what-could-bes. They wouldn’t be driving her nuts like they were doing now.

x-x-x-x-x

She decided to wear the dress. Her hands smoothed the material down over her hips as she examined herself critically in the mirror, turning this way and that. It fit her like it was made for no one else, and the muted white of the fabric gave her a fabulous-looking tan.

It was perfect. Happily she twirled around, making the skirt flare out, feeling elegant and cute.

The chime for the door rang, and she called for the door to open without her eyes leaving the mirror. The automated entrance unlocked obligingly at her voice command, and only when she heard it start to slide open did she glance over.

Sky stood on the threshold, and her guard involuntarily went up a few notches.

“Were you looking for me?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her tone was cooler than she’d meant for it to be. She picked up her hairbrush and drew it up towards her hair, a split second before she realized she would be ruining her perfectly spritzed curls if she actually brushed them. It was a gesture of nervousness, one that utterly failed to make her next query seem casual, “Who is she?”

“Who’s who?”

“Whoever it was in your room.”

Sky looked a little bemused. “She’s the C squad cadet I’m helping.”

“What was she doing in there?”

“She came to wake me up.”

“Are you two that close?” Mental smack.

He rolled his eyes. “Syd, believe me when I say nothing’s going on between us,” he told her point blank.

She turned a little red. “I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you were thinking it, weren’t you?”

It seemed the Blue Ranger was a lot sharper than she gave him credit for. She didn’t answer right away, and Sky looked amused by her discomfiture.

“Is that all you wanted?”

She felt a stab of annoyance, but it helped to mitigate her feelings a little.

“No,” she said slowly, wondering his company was such a good idea after all. “What are you doing today?”

He shrugged. “Same thing I’ve been doing all week.”

“Revising security checkpoints?”

He looked at her warily. “What do you want, Sydney?”

His impatience wasn’t completely concealed, but she could tell he was at least making an effort. “My parents are having a luncheon for me today to make up for the birthday party I missed, and I wanted you to come.”

Her request seemed to mystify him. While he had finally learned to relax a little with his teammates during their down time, doing something leisurely off of Academy grounds was probably still a radical idea to him.

“Now we get invitations?” he said at last, rather wryly.

“Actually…” She paused, feeling suddenly shy. “Just you. But I suppose you aren’t interested, being as busy as you’ve been.”

He shook his head. “It’s not that.” Something in his expression told her that he wasn’t as oblivious to the subtext in her words as she thought he would be. “It’s just—I don’t think I can go.”

She frowned, puzzled. “Why not?”

“I…I don’t think I have anything that would fit the dress code for wherever you’re going,” he admitted awkwardly, giving her outfit a meaningful glance.

She looked down at her dress. “It’s not exactly black tie or even cocktail.”

“No, really,”—now he sounded almost embarrassed—“I don’t think gym clothes or my uniform is going to cut it.”

She stared at him. “You’re kidding me.”

“Check my closet.”

She made a noise that might have been a laugh, but it was short and humorless, dying almost as soon as it began. She felt like tearing her perfectly coiffed hair out. “You—you are impossible, you know that?”

“We wouldn’t have this problem if I’d gotten a bit more head’s notice,” he replied irately. “You decided to spring this on me now?”

“You told me you had to work!” she exclaimed.

“I did!” He started to get defensive as well. “I got a memo later that afternoon saying my shift had been switched. Why didn’t you just tell me what you wanted?”

“Because I didn’t think it’d matter! Nothing else ever matters with you when work is involved.”

He went silent for a moment, and when he answered, it wasn’t to argue her point. “You still should’ve just told me.”

“Too late now,” she said tartly, turning away from him in a swirl of white gauze.

“Work is important,” she heard him start to say behind her, making her bristle. If he was about to start with one of his lectures about duty and responsibility, she was going to explode at him, reasonable or not.

“—but I thought you knew me better to know that other things are important to me, too.”

“You could’ve fooled me, Tate.”

“I mean it, Syd.”

She turned to look at him, blue eyes glittering. “Then why don’t you ever act like it?”

“Why does that bother you now?” he countered.

To that she had no answer.

“This is the way I am,” he continued a little more softly. But it wasn’t an apology. It wasn’t an excuse. “I’m sorry if that’s not enough for you anymore.”

For all the harshness of his voice, she could hear the subtle hurt in it. Her door started to cycle closed as soon as he stepped away from it, and suddenly it felt like she was always watching his retreating back these days. She had half a mind to go after him, but she felt frozen in place.

Sky was right, amazingly, annoying, frustratingly enough. She couldn’t have genuine feelings for him unless she accepted the uptight, arrogant, workaholic Ranger that he was even if he became more than just a friend. None of it meant that he didn’t have a good heart, or that he was incapable of caring about her deep inside. She just couldn’t keep looking for a Romeo inside a Robert Lee, because that just wasn’t Sky.

Her phone rang suddenly, a message from the front desk saying her ride had arrived. Feeling a bit flustered, she grabbed her shawl and purse, which was probably missing at least two items she was forgetting in her haste and would inevitably be wanting later. There wasn’t really any time to seek out Sky again, but she didn’t want to leave and be gone for half the day while they were upset with each other. The limo wouldn’t leave without her in it, she figured, and the luncheon couldn’t start without its guest of honor anyway. She went over to Sky’s room once more, uncertain what she wanted to say to him.

It turned out that didn’t matter. He and his guest were already gone.

- -

Author’s Comment: This scene was actually kind of sweet until I went to edit it. Then Sky and Syd just started arguing, and I decided to let them be.

Reference FYI: Robert Edward Lee

“Robert Edward Lee was a career army officer and the most successful general of the Confederate forces during the American Civil War. He eventually commanded all Confederate armies as general-in-chief.” – Wikipedia

And a tidbit I didn’t know at the time I wrote this, but turned out to be quite fitting:

“The son of a Revolutionary War hero, Robert E. Lee was a model cadet. So much so, in fact, that he was dubbed the "Marble Statue" for his nearly perfect record while at the academy. He was always ranked first or second in his class and never earned a single demerit during his four years at West Point.” -- americancivilwar. com

Chapter Six - Romance For Dummies

Jack slowed his pace in the hallway when he saw a familiar blonde walking in his direction. She was in civilian wear, meaning she was free for the day unlike him. Their eyes met as she came near, and she nodded to him with an impassive expression.

“Good morning, sir,” she said stiffly, making him frown. He knew she played up the formality to an unnecessary level because it annoyed him. Well, two could play at that game.

“Good morning, cadet,” he said coolly, raising his chin a little superiorly.

They came to a complete halt in front of each other, their stony expressions growing more and more ridiculous as the silence lengthened. Finally she chuckled, shaking her head at their antics, and he grinned.

“How’ve you been?” she asked, turning slightly so her back was to the wall, and propping a foot against it idly.

“Pretty good.” He noted that the fluorescent lightning directly above her made her already blinding white tracksuit seem almost radioactive. “Pretty busy. You?”

“Same,” she glanced at his uniform. “You’re on duty today?”

“Yeah, lucky me. I got the weekend shift this week.”

“Well, some poor soul will be saying the same thing next weekend.”

Sky was the one slated for next weekend duty. “Somehow I don’t think he’ll need much sympathy.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because he’s a workaholic. He’ll enjoy the extra hours.”

“Geez. What a bore.”

Jack grinned. “My thoughts exactly.”

The smile on her face made him think that she knew exactly who he was talking about, which wasn’t all that impossible. It probably wasn’t hard to guess.

“But,” she said, straightening up. “Hard work is important. Especially yours. In fact, perhaps it’s best I didn’t keep you from it.” Her lips twitched upward at the corners. “Sir.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at that; he thought they were done with this ‘sir’ business. “Perhaps it is best then if all you insist on doing is annoy me. I can’t be bothered by the antics of an immature maggot.”

‘Maggot’ was a term he’d heard used around the Academy in reference to the D-squad cadets, obviously derogatory in origin. It was likely to insult a C-level cadet, who was significantly more seasoned, but the way he used it now was in the same tone she used whenever she called him ‘sir’—lightly mocking. It was the only comeback he could think of to try to grate on her nerves the way she enjoyed grating on his.

“Maggot, am I?”

Unfortunately, the look she gave him was hardly annoyed. Instead, it was more haughty…and somewhat provocative. She stepped a little closer to him.

“Don’t forget who kicked your butt on the range last week,” she said in a low, smug voice.

Before he could respond, she straightened up again, bid him a token ‘good day, sir’ and practically speed walked down the hall. He watched her round the corner, a perplexed expression on his face. She was a proud one, all right, just like he was. It made for an interesting game of hard-to-get, but in the few encounters that they’d had so far, she somehow always managed to have the last word.

Jack continued down the hall in the direction he’d originally been going in, and not more than a minute later, he ran into Sky. The Blue Ranger was dressed in black track pants and a blue windbreaker, looking distracted and cranky.

“Yo Sky!” Jack called loudly, just to see what his teammate would do.

A muttered, “Hi, Jack” was all he got as the Blue Ranger brushed right past him, never once slowing down. Jack turned his head to watch Sky’s retreating back curiously, wondering what was up. While Sky wasn’t the nicest guy in the world, he generally wasn’t in such a foul temper either.

Just when Jack thought his morning wouldn’t get any more eventful, he ran into Syd in the lift. She was in civilian wear also, the fanciest he’d encountered that morning by far. The style of her dress made him wonder if it was left over from her days as a magazine cover-gracing starlet; she looked even more stunning than she had on the evening of her birthday party. Curiously though, her expression could only be described as gloomy, which was doubly unusual for the normally cheery Pink Ranger.

“Hey,” said Jack warmly. “You’re looking very fine this morning, if I may say so.”

He was rewarded with a half-hearted smile. His ‘debonair’ routine always amused Syd.

“Thanks.”

“Where are you going?” He noticed she had hit the button for the ground floor.

“A birthday luncheon with my parents,” she replied. “They insist on some sort of celebration, however belated it is.”

“I’m glad you’ll get your party after I ruined the first one,” he offered loyally, though he knew she’d already forgiven him. “But you don’t seem so thrilled. I thought you liked parties.”

The Pink Ranger sighed. “I guess I’m not in a celebratory mood.”

“Why not?”

Syd paused. “I…Sky and I kind of got in a fight this morning.”

“Really?” Now he had an explanation for the Blue Ranger’s foul mood. But for Syd’s sake, he tried to appear more sympathetic than curious. “About what?”

“I asked him to come to this luncheon with me, but he said he didn’t have anything he could wear, and I…sort of got mad at him for it.”

“You got mad at him for having nothing to wear?”

She looked a little embarrassed. “Yeah. I really wanted him to come, and it seemed like such a stupid reason for him not to.”

“I know Sky has clothing other than his uniform, contrary to popular belief. We’ve all seen it.”

“Yeah, but nothing fancy enough. The luncheon’s at the country club, so I guess he was right…”

“You are quite the vision.”

Syd rolled her eyes, but smiled anyway. “It’s partially my fault. I only told him about it this morning, and that’s why he got annoyed. He would have gone if he’d had time to find something suitable to wear.”

That surprised Jack. Since when did Sky do anything leisurely outside of the Academy?

“So why didn’t you tell him earlier?”

The lift reached the floor he had intended to get off at, but he just reached over and hit the button to close the doors again.

“I don’t want to keep you,” Syd protested.

“It’s okay,” he soothed. “It’s slow work this morning. I’ll walk you down.”

The lift had begun descending again, so any further protest was fruitless. All she said was, “Thanks.”

“No problem.” He leaned against the side of the car indolently. “So…why didn’t you tell him earlier?”

“I couldn’t find him all week.”

“Syd, we see each other every day.”

She pouted a little. “I didn’t want to ask him while we were on duty. You know he’d just get annoyed.”

That, Jack had to agree with.

“I guess I did see him once,” she amended, frowning. “I was about to ask him, but he said he had to work this weekend, so I figured it didn’t matter what I said next. I let it go. Now I know I should’ve just asked.” She slouched against her side of the car unhappily.

Jack had the vague impression that this was what ‘girl talk’ was like. In the beginning, he’d thought that maybe there was something he could help her out with, but as the conversation went on, he realized the situation was over and done with, and that Syd was just in need of venting. He was familiar with this need in girls, having been Z’s only companion for several years.

But also, in this particular predicament, he was privy to some info that Syd wasn’t, namely that Z and Bridge had been the ones to switch his and Sky’s shifts in the first place. He had a feeling that Syd would be much more pacified if Sky’s reason for missing her luncheon was because he really did have to work, rather than because he was such a stick-in-the-mud with a wardrobe to match.

They reached the ground floor, and true to his word, Jack walked Syd all the way beyond the outer security gate to where her car was waiting. It was a beautiful day out, bright and clear, with the air just crisp enough to encourage some light physical activity. A soft, cool breeze was blowing around, feeling so refreshing that it made Jack sorry he had to work all weekend. Though it was certainly nice to have a secure roof over his head, he sometimes felt a little suffocated being inside the Academy for long stretches of time. He didn’t miss the hunger and the inescapable cold of street-living, but he definitely missed the fresh air.

Beside him, the breeze made Syd’s skirt flutter elegantly around her knees, and her blonde curls glinted gold in the sun. Even her gait was graceful and confident in an understated way. It wasn’t hard to see how she had been such a smashing success as a model and cover girl.

He walked ahead to get the limo door for her, but she stepped around it to give him a hug, thanking him for listening to her ‘ramble’. He returned the embrace in earnest, but as he did so, he saw from the corner of his eye two familiar figures running together in the distance. The taller was in blue and black, the smaller in pure white.

His instinct was to not tell Syd, but just as she was about to get into the car, she spotted them anyway.

“Where are they going?” she mused aloud, glancing back at him. He shrugged.

“I don’t know.” He was surprised Syd even knew the girl in white.

The Pink Ranger didn’t say anything more and climbed into the car. He thought her expression looked a little sad.

“You weren’t kidding when you said you could milk your birthday for a whole week,” he said, inviting her to share the playful memory. “Here you are, a week later and still celebrating.” He smiled.

She lifted her chin a little proudly. “I told you I’m an expert at this.”

“So it seems,” he chuckled “You’ll have to give me lessons before our birthday rolls around next year.”

“I will. Thanks for listening, Jack. I really mean it.”

“Not a problem, Syd. Have fun.”

He closed the limo door and watched the gleaming black car drive off. He took his time heading back inside the Academy, but as he did, he whipped out his morpher and called the Yellow Ranger.

“Z. Your plan backfired.”

x-x-x-x-x

They exchanged wary glances when Z’s morpher chimed. Bridge had been about to let have her first taste of brie, but it seemed his lesson in high-class dairy would have to wait. With a sigh, Z retrieved the little device and snapped it open.

“Z. Your plan backfired.”

“Jack? What’s going on? What plan?”

“Your plan to get our pink and blue lovebirds out on a lunch date.”

Today was Syd’s birthday luncheon, she remembered. Bridge sat up in interest after Jack’s words, turning an ear towards the small communication device.

“What happened?” Z asked.

“According to Syd, she and Sky had a little tiff this morning because she asked him to the luncheon too late, and he didn’t have anything to wear.”

“Nothing to wear? Are you kidding me?”

“Honest to goodness, Z. He must have heard too late that he got the weekend off, and Syd didn’t bother asking him when he told her he had to work. Now I’m stuck doing the weekend rounds for nothing instead of being outside enjoying this beautiful day.”

Z rolled her eyes. “So what are they doing now?”

“Syd just left for her party, and Sky ran off somewhere into the city.”

“Great,” Z groaned and flipped her morpher shut. She looked at Bridge. “Nothing to wear?” The Green Ranger looked amused by her reaction. “I thought only girls could come up with that excuse.”

Bridge smiled. “You remember what he wore to Syd’s surprise party. You were the first to give him a hard time about it.”

“But I didn’t think it was because of lack of options. Does he really own nothing but his uniform?”

“He has some shorts and tshirts in there. But probably nothing good enough for the kind of party I know Syd’s parents are capable of.”

“He could wear his uniform again,” said Z dryly. She reached for a wheat cracker from the package that sat between them on the picnic blanket, but Bridge held her arm.

“Ah-ah.” In his other hand, he held up the original cracker she’d been about to eat when Jack called. “Not without the brie.”

With a grin, Z leaned forward and took a bite of the cheese-smeared crisp as he held it out for her. She chewed thoughtfully, pretending to seriously deliberate its flavor.

“Very good,” she said approvingly after she’d swallowed. “Tastes like every other cheese I’ve had today.”

Bridge looked skeptical. “Even the extra, extra sharp cheddar?”

Z wrinkled her nose—she hadn’t liked that one. “Well, okay. Maybe milder than that.”

The Green Ranger looked appeased, and she let him feed her the rest of the treat.

It was a perfect day to be outside, and given that, she did feel a little guilty that Jack was stuck inside the Academy for no good reason. She and Bridge had planned this picnic a week earlier, and it was by sheer luck that they caught such great weather. The contents of the picnic, however—the classic checkered blanket and wicker basket full of crackers, cheeses, bread, and grapes—was all Bridge’s doing. She definitely knew the Green Ranger had an affinity for toast, but the more she got to know him, the more she realized he had an affinity for food in general. When he heard she’d never tasted brie or Tillamook cheddar in her life, he had been appalled.

“Next we have—” Bridge took out another sample of cheese from the basket, this one with a pale yellow interior and dotted with small holes. “Havarti. Made in Denmark in the 19th century by a cheesemaker named Hanne Nielsen, who named it after his farm—”

“Where’d you learn so much about cheese?” she interrupted, detecting an inevitable ramble. “Or just food in general.”

“My mom,” he said, turning the triangle of cheese over and over in his hands trying to find the edge of the wrapper. “She home-schooled me one year when I was little because I had a hard time fitting in with the kids at school, and I spent most of my lessons in the kitchen with her, getting distracted and asking what she was doing instead. She’d spent a few years in a culinary academy when she was younger, so she knew tons of neat trivia about certain foods.”

She smiled, relishing this new bit she’d learned about the Green Ranger. “So that’s where you got your obsession with food from.”

He nodded. “Maybe you’d like to come over for dinner sometime,” he said hopefully. “She makes the best risotto and lemon meringue pie.”

“I’d like that.” His dinner invitation gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, but she found she didn’t mind it so much this time. “What’s risotto?”

From the look he gave her, she might have sprouted another head, and she laughed.

“Well, it’s a good thing I have you to teach me about finer dining,” she teased lightly. “I was beginning to think regenerated matter was as good as it gets.”

“It’s not bad, considering it is regenerated.” He finally got the wrapper off the havarti and started cutting off small slices to put on the crackers. She snagged the first one and ate it plain, and was surprised by the smooth, creamy flavor that spread across her tongue.

“Wow,” she exclaimed, making him look up. “This one’s really good.” She reached for another piece. “I think it’ll be my favorite.”

His face lit up with an adorable smile. “It’s my favorite, too.”

x-x-x-x-x

“Meet me in the art store when you’re done.”

Sky nodded and headed back down the block towards the hardware store. At one point he glanced over his shoulder, and saw his sister crossing the street in a direction that was definitely not towards the art supply store. The way she ambled along, he knew she wasn’t counting on him catching her taking a detour. He sighed to himself, simply hoping she wouldn’t take too long, wherever she was going.

The hardware store wasn’t small, but it was dark and musty nevertheless on account of the numerous crude wooden shelves blocking the windows, and thousands of screws and bolts and tools releasing their metallic odor into the air.

Let’s see...what did he need. A handful of nails of varying lengths, and more sheet metal. He asked the clerk if he could have the metal cut to the sizes he specified, and was relieved when the man said yes. That would save him time from having to cut it himself, and would also make transporting the metal back to the Academy a whole lot easier.

While he waited, his mind drifted back to the events of that morning. By nature, he wasn’t one to dwell, but his most recent argument with Sydney didn’t feel as inconsequential as others had been. It was a fact of their existence that he annoyed her as often as she pestered him, but rarely did she become genuinely upset with him.

He understood why it had happened, but what he didn’t get was why she had reached critical mass all of a sudden. He knew she harbored feelings deeper than friendship for him—something he had had confirmed for him on two separate occasions by two unsolicited people—but that had gone on for months, and she had never shown signs before of discontentment with the quasi-platonic nature of their relationship. His arrogance amused her and her feistiness challenged him, and that was how he liked it. He would cherish and protect her if she agreed to be his, but he didn’t care to walk down the path of token handholds, empty whispered nothings, and stupid pet names, which apparently was what she wanted now. Girls always liked that stuff, and sooner or later, they got huffy if they didn’t get it.

Well okay, maybe there was one schmaltzy thing he would have liked to do, but in general, his lack of affectionate or emotive demonstrations was a matter of preference rather than restraint. He glanced at the splint on his left hand. Could someone like Sydney, who most definitely enjoyed being treated like a princess, understand that he just had atypical ways of showing that he cared?

The clerk returned with the sheet metal, and he paid for his few purchases and left. Not surprisingly, Ree was not at the art store yet. He browsed through the aisle of model kits while he waited, and was considering getting one with a fighter jet when his sister walked up. Her nose was buried in some book colored pink and gold, and she had a plastic bag with the local bookseller’s logo on it hanging from her arm.

“You’re late,” he said flatly.

Her gray eyes flickered from whatever line she was reading to his face for a moment, and then back. She chuckled and shut the book, handing it to him.

“I got that for you. A must-have for your collection.”

He was not amused by the title—1001 Ways to Be Romantic.

“Thanks, but no thanks.” He handed the book back to her. She opened it to a random page in the middle and read a few more lines.

“You’re right,” she concluded, sliding the book into the plastic bookseller’s bag. “This might be too advanced for you. I should have stuck with Romance for Dummies.”

“It’s none of your business,” he said sourly. She arched an eyebrow.

“Excuse me? You made it my business when you asked for my help with this arts & crafts endeavor of yours.”

“And that’s the only thing I need your help in.”

Ree scoffed. “If only that were true, Casanova. But hey, have it your way.”

He was only too happy to let his unruly other half drop the subject. He looked at a few more model kits while Ree pulled a second book from her bag and looked through that. In the end, he decided he’d go with the fighter jet, and then the two of them headed over towards the acrylic paint aisle.

“A romance novel?” he asked skeptically when he saw the passionately embracing couple on the cover of the small paperback she held. His sister usually read things like Stephen King and Homer.

“I have my reasons,” she said cryptically. She shivered dramatically and put the book away. “This book is god-awful.”

“Huh.” He looked confused, but didn’t ask for an explanation.

In the paint aisle, he let Ree have full control of what colors they would use because she wanted it. He hung back while she eyed the palettes critically, selecting and deselecting several different jars. Occasionally she’d hold up two ridiculously similar colors and ask his opinion. He helped when he could.

As she fluttered around the paints, he found himself wondering—and he would never admit it aloud to her—what exactly was in that romance guide she’d picked up for him. Would it explain why women liked the mushy little gestures that more often than not were quite useless?

Now Ree was bent over and rooting through the middle shelves for something. She slid the bookseller’s bag down from her elbow into her hand and shoved it backwards at him.

“Hold this.”

The pink and gold book winked at him from inside, like a sign from above.

“What are you looking for?” he asked when Ree stood up straight again, frowning in dissatisfaction.

She didn’t answer him because she turned to call out to a passing sales boy. “Excuse me!” The boy turned and smiled pleasantly at her. “Do you guys carry the new holographic paints by Horizons?”

“Yes, we do,” the boy answered, looking awfully pleased, and proceeded to lead them to an aisle near the front of the store. Or rather, proceeded to chatter up a storm with Ree about paints while Sky followed a few steps behind.

“Great! This is perfect!” his sister enthused when the boy showed her the row of minuscule one-ounce jars with metallic labels.

“Anything else I can help you with?”

“A basket would be nice.”

With a nod, the sales boy went off to carry out her request as if there were nothing else he’d rather do. Sky rolled his eyes disparagingly, and then Ree thrust a jar towards his face for him to see.

“You will love these.”

The magenta labeling boasted the frou-frou name ‘Flower Fest Pink’. He made a face and glanced at the so-called sale price taped to the shelf.

“These are expensive for paint, Ree.”

“But they’ll be worth it,” she insisted, already turning around to pick out a few more colors. “Trust me.”

“I don’t usually find that a wise move.”

The sales boy returned with a shopping basket, for which Ree thanked him ardently and then let him lead them up to the checkout counter. Again, Sky followed a few paces behind, their idle dialogue buzzing in his ears without really being absorbed. But he recognized the talent, a certain sociability that he couldn’t claim to possess. It was like a supernatural force that encouraged other people to respond positively in turn. Sydney possessed that power, Sydney who could make anyone feel at ease. She was the reason they had ever managed to become friends in the first place, with her sunny personality and a warm smile that welcomed everyone, even him.

Yeah, he really didn’t like having her be upset with him, especially so unreasonably so. Unfortunately, he remembered hearing somewhere that even if they were the ones who were wrong, women liked for men to take the first step in any reconciliation. There was just no logic in that, as the one at fault should be the one to remedy the situation. But it was true.

As they exited the art store, Ree said she wanted lunch. The moment she suggested food, he realized his stomach felt quite empty as well and accordingly started to protest. It was already 1:16 pm, and the 5-mile trek back to the Academy would require much refueling. They picked up sandwiches from a popular local vegetarian deli and took them to the Newtech City Plaza to eat outside in the sunshine.

For a long while they ate in silence, each lost in his or her own thoughts and watching disinterestedly the people passing by in the plaza. But Ree tolerated quiet much less aptly than Sky did, and about two-thirds of the way through her sandwich, she got restless and pulled out a sprout, offering it to him.

“Alfalfa sprout for your thoughts?” she said.

He didn’t take the sprout, of course, but it had done its job of getting his attention, and she popped it her mouth after he glanced at her. When his pensive look didn’t fade, she remarked casually, “You’ve got it bad.”

“I was wondering if we could finish the outer casting by tonight,” he said, “Or possibly even the entire thing.”

“Liar,” she said around a mouthful of sandwich. “But yes, I think we can.”

He frowned. “Which one?”

“Depends how much sleep you’d like to get tonight.”

“The optimal amount would be preferable. But I also want to just get this over with and be done with it.”

“Same. I’m missing amusement time on the range.”

“With Jack,” he mumbled.

Ree nearly choked on her food. How the hell did he know about that?

“It’s against regulations, you know,” he said with a sideways glance.

“Were you spying on me? And no it’s not. Besides, there’s nothing going on between us, you incorrigible prude.”

“I wasn’t spying. And it is against regulations for inter-squad relations. To prevent preferential treatment and the like.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“I know Jack—he likes to charm, but nothing ever really comes from it. I figure it’ll be the same here.”

Ree felt her face warm a little. “You know, that’s an incredibly insensitive thing to say.”

He just shrugged. “I’m just telling you the truth.”

“Maybe you should consider learning a thing or two about charm instead.”

The sudden chime of Sky’s morpher saved them from further argument. They glanced at it simultaneously before he balled up his empty sandwich wrapper in one hand and answered the call with the other.

“Tate here.”

“Tate, Ranger emergency downtown in your approximate vicinity, sector A12G. The other Rangers are on their way.”

“I’m on it, sir.” He snapped the morpher shut and stood up. They both jumped when a loud explosion was heard in the distance, and glanced in the general direction of the noise.

“Sounds like a bad one,” Ree remarked, glad for the distraction from their unpleasant conversation, but wisely concerned about the danger of the attack. “Good thing you ate.”

Sky didn’t respond to her light humor, having snapped into full Ranger mindset now. “You’ll be okay getting back to base?”

“Of course.” Already she was gathering up their purchases, stuffing smaller bags into larger ones so there’d be less to carry. In the end, she only had two, both thankfully light. “Hey…be careful, okay?”

She didn’t think he really heard her, even though he nodded once before he took off running towards the attack. She sighed and hurried off in the opposite direction, along with other citizens intelligent enough not to stand around and gossip until the attack came close enough for them to see.

Chapter Seven - 1001 Ways to be Romantic

It was protocol that all Rangers return to base after battle for a briefing, but thankfully this arrest had been fairly standard—just a sticky-fingered Triglycerarian with combustible body fumes—and the briefing had only taken fifteen minutes. After that, the team went more or less their own ways.

Sky had himself a brief shower to rinse off the sweat from his morning run, and then returned to his room. He was about to start his report for the arrest while the details were fresh in his mind when the door slid open. There stood Sydney, looking lovely in her gauze-and-silk dress, not a single blonde curl out of place even after a fight. She smiled hesitantly and asked for a favor.

“Can you give me a ride back to the country club?”

He looked puzzled. “No one can come pick you up?”

“It’s faster this way.”

Her expression was suspiciously hopeful, considering she’d been mad at him the last time they’d spoken. He shrugged nonchalantly and stood up, grabbing his uniform jacket and keys.

“Why are you in uniform?” she asked as they started down the hall. “You’re not on duty.”

He always wore his uniform when he was inside the Academy, even on weekends and his days off. Why not, he figured, since he had no reason for wearing anything else there. And you never knew when an emergency would spring up. Sydney knew all this.

“At least one of us has to be in uniform if we take out the patrol vehicles,” he reminded her. She knew that too.

In the parking garage, he headed straight for his patrol cycle but she suddenly hung back, asking a little whiningly, “Can we take the jeep?”

“Why?” His cycle would get her where she wanted to go much faster than the jeep.

“I don’t want my hair to get ruined.”

He just looked at her for a moment; her shallower tendencies still amazed him sometimes.

“And I’m wearing a dress,” she added, as if she thought he would honestly deny her request, however ridiculous it was. “There’s no way I’m riding a motorcycle in a skirt.”

Her mouth was set in a stubborn little pout, and all he could do was sigh in exasperation as he walked towards the driver’s side of the jeep. She scurried into the passenger’s seat, and after asking for general directions of where to go, they set off.

Fifteen traffic lights, six of them red, went by before the silence in the car was broken. Sky had been noticing how unusually small Syd looked in the seat beside him, probably because of the way she sat with her shoulders slightly hunched forward, her head pointed at her lap, and her hands clasped placidly on her knees. She chewed on her lower lip a good deal, as if she were deeply contemplating something. He also noticed the way the wind was blowing several locks of her hair astray in their roofless jeep, confirming his earlier suspicion that her excuse about her hair was a ruse.

At the sixteenth traffic light, the seventh red, Sydney caught the sidelong glance he was giving her and both of them quickly averted their eyes. He pretended to watch the light while Sydney—thankfully Sydney decided to break the uncomfortable silence.

“I’m sorry I got mad at you this morning,” she said, a little morosely. “I just really wanted you to come to this luncheon with me.”

That much he had figured out. He glanced over at her reluctantly, only to find her cornflower blue gaze already on him.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why do you think?” she asked back.

He sighed. Why couldn’t girls ever just say exactly what they meant? “Syd…maybe it has to do with being a guy, but you’re going to have to tell me exactly what it is you want from me.”

She blinked, perhaps not expecting him to be so frank.

“Just you,” she said, a little awkwardly as if that weren’t quite right. “I just want you.”

“Well, you have me.” The light turned green again and he had to return his gaze to the road.

“Do I?”

He had meant that she had him right there, present, in the flesh, tangible and right in front of her. She of course, had taken his words to mean something else.

“Yes.” His gaze flickered towards her briefly. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

She blew out her breath nosily, having to remind herself that men naturally came with slower brains.

“That’s not what I meant. I meant—” her voice grew a little quieter. “I meant do you feel about me the way that I feel about you.”

“The way I feel about you never changed.” His answer was unexpectedly quick, which made her suspect he had already thought about the subject beforehand. “I’m not sure what it is I did to make you think otherwise, but I do care about you. It’s just I’m happy with the way things are between us while you seem to want something more now.”

It was a shame that he couldn’t focus or even really look at her as he spoke because his words might have been a little easier for her to interpret. As they were, they made her heart sink a little.

“You’re happy just being friends?”

“No.” He said it so readily it startled her. “I don’t want to just be friends. I want you to be mine and to understand that I’m not a very sentimental person. I’m just not, but it doesn’t mean I care any less about you.”

“So you…do want us to be together?” she asked as if she weren’t sure she’d heard him quite right.

“Yes.” His eyes flickered towards her again, and he asked at length, “Do you?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, and immediately blushed at her own eagerness. “Of course I do.”

If she had still been uncertain about his meaning, then the subtle rise and fall of his shoulders in a silent sigh of relief would have dispelled any further doubt.

“How come you never said anything before?” she ventured curiously.

“We both seemed happy with the way things were. And like I said before, I’m not a very sentimental person, and I wasn’t sure you’d understand.”

“Sky, everyone knows you’re not a sentimental person. What wouldn’t I understand about that?”

“Why’d you get upset this morning then?”

“I told you. I really wanted you to be my date and something stupid got in the way.”

“You were upset with me, Syd.”

She fidgeted a little. “I wasn’t sure whether or not you cared.”

“Because I’m not demonstrative enough.”

“…or at all.”

“That’s exactly my point,” he muttered. “Girls always like that stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Stuff like—like moonlit walks and…needing to be told repeatedly that you’re important to me. Like…” he gestured helplessly with one hand in the air as he struggled for words. “Like ways to be romantic,” he said at last, directly quoting the title of the book Ree had gotten for him. “Girls always seem to need that stuff.”

He seemed genuinely miffed, but there was just something incredibly funny about the ice king sputtering out his dislike for romantic fuzziness. Almost against her will, Sydney giggled, but she supposed his finally admitting that he cared for her had lifted a great weight off her spirit.

“Of course we do,” she said simply. “If you don’t like romance at all, how do you tell whether you like someone as a close friend or as something more?”

“Well.” He glanced over his right shoulder suddenly, and in one smooth maneuver he steered the car over two lanes and pulled it into an empty spot along the sidewalk where the curb was painted red. He put the gear into ‘park’.

“Sky?” she asked worriedly, his strange actions alarming her a little.

His hand lifted off the gearshift and touched her chin. Instinctively she leaned forward with it, only vaguely aware of him releasing his seatbelt and leaning towards her in one deft motion. He gave her the gentlest kiss she had ever received, and it sent a sweet, delicious shiver down her spine. To her disappointment, he drew away first after only a single moment, but maybe it was that ephemerality that had made it so much more powerful.

“Besides that,” he said, a slight breathless quality to his voice that she had never heard before, “I knew you weren’t a friend when I looked at you one day and thought to myself; you have no idea what I wouldn’t do for you.”

Her cheeks immediately flushed a rosy red, which made him smile in spite of himself.

“Sky.” She honestly had no idea how her voice was functioning properly. “That was the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

He just shrugged. “It’s true.”

A smile spread across her face as she released her own seatbelt and lunged at him, eager to get rid of the one-foot gap that separated them. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her still-warm face into his jacket when a giddy little giggle escaped. Clearly the movement startled him, but he merely mimicked her and put his arms around her in a secure embrace. The gesture was extremely reminiscent of the hug she’d received at her surprise birthday party, and a strong sense of déjà vu swept over her.

“You don’t like moonlit strolls or being romantic, yet a kiss isn’t too much for you?” she murmured amusedly, enjoying his warmth and clean male scent.

“If this sort of stuff made any sense…” He sounded quite serious, but she laughed anyway.

“Would you do it again if I asked you to?” She lifted her head and gave him an impish look. “Since there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for me…”

She didn’t actually wait for an answer. She just caught his mouth with her own but he allowed it. Like the first one, this kiss was also gentle, tenderness defined, but a few satisfying moments longer.

“Syd?” He drew back only a hair’s width away, and she could feel his breath warm on her skin as he spoke.

“What?”

“We’re parked in a red zone.”

Damn.

x-x-x-x-x

“Well, if it ain’t Mary Poppins,” remarked Z as Sydney all but floated into the rec room that evening after returning from the country club.

”Sans the umbrella,” Bridge pointed out.

“Doesn’t look like she needs one.”

It was true the Pink Ranger hadn’t been in this good of a mood all week as she came around to settle onto the couch behind Z. She held a pink box tied with white ribbon in her lap.

“Have a good party?” asked Jack, who had been snoozing on a neighboring couch with a comic book draped over his face.

“It was great!” Sydney chirped. “I got tons and tons of presents, lots of expensive ones, too. And Daddy said he’s getting me the new stereo that I wanted.”

Z made a face that said she wasn’t impressed, but Jack smiled indulgently at Sydney. “Good for you, Syd.”

“Here,” Sydney picked up the pink box in her lap and held it out to him. “I brought you guys something from the party. The best cream puffs in the entire world.”

That got everyone’s attention. Jack accepted the box with interest and sat up, untying the white ribbon bow on top. He took out one of the five pastries that sat nestled inside on wax paper and then passed the box to Bridge, who took out a puff and passed the box along to Z.

“Where’s Sky?” asked Sydney when the box returned to her, the two remaining cream puffs sitting close together inside.

“Dunno,” said Z around a mouthful of pastry. “I haven’t seen him since after the fight today.”

Bridge and Jack nodded in concurrence, and Sydney groaned.

“Not again.”

“You know,” Jack licked a bit of cream off his palm. “You could always call him with your morpher if you want to talk to him.”

It was kind of amazing that no one had ever mentioned that possibility in the entire week. Sydney in particular was thunderstruck that she’d forgotten all Rangers were connected by a mere push of a button, with the additional benefit that Sky would never ignore a call on his morpher.

“I’ll think about it,” she said as casually as she could, setting down the pastry box and standing up. “I need to shower and change. See you guys later.”

She walked out of the room with considerably more purpose than she’d had walking in.

“Ah, I’m a genius,” said Jack satisfactorily, popping his last bit of cream puff in his mouth.

“She never thought of that before?” Bridge looked at Z in genuine perplexity.

The Yellow Ranger just shrugged and reached for another cream puff from the box.

x-x-x-x-x

Sydney paced her room a good long while, absently brushing her hair while she contemplated whether or not she wanted to use her morpher to find their errant Blue Ranger. They needed to talk after what happened that afternoon, but Sky would be irritated that she’d used her morpher for personal matters. After all, whenever the little device rang, it was usually bad news, so she’d be putting him on guard unnecessarily by using it. Also, there really wasn’t anything so desperate she needed to say to him to be so persistent in finding him. But since when did a girl ever need a reason to see her boyfriend?

Is that what we are?

She wasn’t sure, and that was why she was so anxious to see him again.

With an effort, she shut down the ongoing debate in her head and pressed the button on her morpher.

“Sky?”

”Sydney?”

“Can you meet me on the northeast deck?”

“Why? What’s wrong? Is something going on?”

“Nothing, and no. I just need to talk to you.”

She couldn’t help wincing a little when the Blue Ranger’s tone turned exasperated. “I’m kind of in the mid—”

He cut off very abruptly after a curious hiss in the background. There was a pause and then…

“I’ll head there now.”

“Okay.” She shut her morpher, suddenly dreading the encounter and wishing she hadn’t called him. At this point though, it would be worse to chicken out, and she had the entire short lift ride up to think of an excuse for pulling him away from his—from whatever he was doing.

The northeast deck was a favorite leisure spot in the Academy, especially during the warmer seasons. Tables and chairs would be procured from somewhere and dragged out onto the wide stone terrace, and cadets and staff alike would spend their mealtimes there, relaxing and sunning themselves. The terrace was barren now, but it probably wouldn’t be for long since the cusp of spring was nigh.

Sydney found Sky standing in front of the glass-paneled wall that looked out onto the deck, perfectly centered between the two exit doors. He was still in uniform, with his hands clasped in the small of his back, standing quite motionless. Rather sentinel-like, she thought. He made a nice picture, him and that extraordinarily clean glass wall, and the city in the distance that would have been prettier if not for the fluorescent lighting inside the base.

He turned as soon as her reflection appeared in the glass, and she came to stand beside him with a shy smile.

“Hey,” she said, wanting to lean against his arm.

“Is everything all right?” he asked immediately, his brow furrowed and a little on the stern side. She had to hide a sigh. She shouldn’t have used the morpher.

“Everything’s fine,” she assured him, resisting the urge to shuffle. Only around Sky was it uncomfortable to stand around without a particular purpose. “Do I need a reason to want to see you?”

“Most people usually have one. You said you wanted to talk?”

“Yeah. I just don’t know what about.” He gave her a strange look and she sighed. “I feel like we didn’t really finish our talk this afternoon.”

“I didn’t realize we were ever cut off.”

“I guess we weren’t. But I—I think this is one of those times you have to remind me how important I am to you again.”

“Already?” But to her relief, he actually looked a little amused. His arm came around her and gave her a little squeeze, like he’d done unexpectedly that day she fretted she was becoming old. Unlike that time though, this time they didn’t separate. She put her arm around his waist and leaned against his side.

“You’re very important to me,” he replied as they both gazed out at Newtech in the distance. “I want you safe, I want you happy, and I’m glad you’re able to give me cues about what to do.”

She laughed softly. “You know, for a self-proclaimed ice king, you’re pretty good at the sweet talk.”

He frowned. “Ice king?”

She just smiled angelically and gave his middle a squeeze. “Not all romance has to give you cavities.”

“I was serious about the cues though.”

“I’ll do my best,” she replied with a smile. “In fact, you know what we need to do?”

“What?”

“Go on our first date. What are you doing tomorrow?”

He thought about the airbrushing she had dragged him away from. “Something…”

“No. The correct answer is, ‘Nothing. I’d love to go on a date with you tomorrow.’”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re trying to mold me.”

“You missed the cue.”

He actually laughed, and subsequently, so did she.

“What were you in the middle of when I called you?”

”That project I’m doing with Ree.”

The name didn’t sound familiar to her, but then again, she only knew a handful of C-level cadets by face, and even fewer by name. The B squad ran simulations with the D cadets every so often, but C cadets were trained enough that their activities were mostly independent of the B squad’s.

“Still? How long does it take to come up with a new checkpoint plan for the Academy?”

“She’s a perfectionist,” he said mildly.

It wasn’t that she thought he was being dishonest, but his constant elusiveness about the subject bothered her. The nagging feeling that there was something else going on that he wasn’t saying wouldn’t go away. “So are you.”

“That must be why this is taking so long then.”

“It’s just strange that you hardly ever even talk to other cadets, and suddenly you’re bending over backwards to help this one out. I figure she must be significant in some way, unless she blackmailed you or tricked you into doing this somehow.”

He rolled his eyes. “Like anyone in the Academy can manage that. Look, the reason I’m willing to help her out is because she’s my sister, okay?”

“Your sister’s here at the Academy too?” She vaguely remembered Sky mentioning once that he had a sibling, but it was a long time ago, and since he didn’t like to talk about his family, she never brought it up again. His father’s death probably had a lot to do with it, but considering the man had been a Ranger, maybe it wasn’t so unusual that both the kids ended up in SPD.

He nodded. “Now will you stop being so antsy about her?”

She blushed. “How come you didn’t just say so before?”

“She doesn’t like for people to know we’re related. She thinks it’ll make people have misconceptions about her and made me promise not to say anything.”

“But you just told me.”

He gave her a look, and she ducked her head sheepishly. “I assume that you’re sworn to secrecy now too.”

“My lips are sealed.” After a pause, she glanced up at him from beneath her lashes. “Sorry.”

He rubbed her shoulder companionably. “Now will you let me get back to my work?”

Admittedly, she did feel a lot better now. “Only if you give me a kiss first.”

The request startled him, but she looked unabashed.

“Cue,” she said quietly.

The corner of his lips twitched, and with a mock sigh of exasperation, he leaned down and granted her request.

Chapter Eight - The Gift

Sunday morning, Sydney had a much easier time deciding what she wanted to wear for her date that day, by virtue of having one discarded outfit from the day before, and also from much deliberation the previous evening after she and Sky had parted ways. The ice blue spring jacket was a favorite of hers, its color being more appropriate than ever on this particular outing, but the white Capri pants would require just the right footwear—very possibly open-toed, and thus toe polish was a good precaution.

At 9 a.m. she awoke, a spring already in her step and a cheerful hum under her breath as she gathered her grooming items and headed towards a long pampering session in the bathroom.

Meanwhile, Sydney’s roommate, who once awakened did not easily fall back asleep, mumbled something about getting laid that the Pink Ranger did not hear and reached out blindly from beneath the covers for her headphones on the stand beside the bed. Hopefully some music could lull her back into peaceful dreaming. Her hand fumbled around a bit before she found the device and yanked it beneath her comforter. With the touch of a button, sweet music flowed through the wires and she rolled back onto her side, curling into a comfortable position with a content sigh. Dimly she heard Sydney reentering the room, probably for some minute but direly important item in her beauty regime. That tended to happen when one’s regime included an insane variety of tools and products.

Forty-five minutes later, Sydney returned, flushed and glowing beneath her bathrobe from a refreshingly hot shower. She was still humming some un intelligible tune, but stopped abruptly when she noticed the enormous pink box sitting on the floor on her side of the room. The wrapping paper was holographic with a design of little swirls and stripes all over, and a thick silver ribbon laced up all four sides, culminating in a large silver bow on top. Thinner, curling ribbons in silver and gold splayed out from beneath the bow, tiny metallic stars attached to the ends.

A bright smile of delight lit her face as she dropped her shower items on the bed and quickly knelt down beside the box. The wrapping detail was exquisite, and on a childish whim she tugged on a few of the small curly ribbons so she could watch them spring back into place. Everything shimmered and shined when it moved.

She inspected the entire perimeter of the box and frowned a little when she could find no card or any indication of who the gift was from. She glanced at her roommate.

“Z?” The lump on the opposite bed did not move, and she hissed louder, “Z!”

A long-suffering sigh issued forth from beneath the yellow comforter before a hostile brown eye peeked out.

“Where’d this box come from?” Sydney demanded.

“How should I know?” was the groggy reply.

“This wasn’t here when I left an hour ago.”

“It wasn’t?” the Yellow Ranger uncovered her head and pulled off her headphones. “You left the lock off again, didn’t you?”

Sydney ignored her cross tone. “You didn’t see or hear whoever came in?”

Z shot the Pink Ranger a scowl. “If you’d have the courtesy to set the lock on our door when I’m still sleeping, I wouldn’t have to worry about strange people waltzing up in here from ax murderers to Grumm to—”

“Okay, okay, sorry,” Sydney huffed. Her roommate was so not a morning person! “There’s no card or name on here.”

Z sat up in bed but kept the blankets firmly wrapped around her. “Why don’t you open it?”

“Was going to.” Sydney examined the box once more before tugging at the bow on top. “This must be the stereo Daddy said he was getting me.” The knot came undone smoothly and the wide ribbon loosened, easily slipping off and taking all the little metallic curlicues with it. “I didn’t think it’d get here so soon.”

“What’s so special about this new stereo?”

“Voice-activated playlists,” replied Sydney with a grin. “And I can put it to any song on any of the ten CDs it holds just by saying the title.”

The Yellow Ranger nodded approvingly. “Awesome.”

Sydney meticulously pulled open the wrapping paper along its taped edges on one side of the box before she realized she wouldn’t be able to do that for the entire box. After that, she just ripped the rest of the beautiful paper off.

A sturdy white box was revealed within, the lid of which was firmly taped down. She had to find scissors to slit through the thick adhesive before she could pull off the top and toss it aside. Then she rose up onto her knees and peered inside.

“Oh my god.”

Intensely curious now, Z leaned forward on the bed. “What is it?”

Sydney hurried to unhook the four sides of the box and let them fall flat to the ground. Z raised an eyebrow.

“Interesting.”

The two of them were staring at a perfect miniature, but not quite that small, replica of the Delta Base, right down to the thousand-plus windows in front and the scowling dog head on the very top. Only here, the dog’s mouth was open a little wider and contained a keyhole—with a key stuck in it. Sydney pulled it out and examined it; it was a beautiful, old-fashioned brass skeleton key with a heart-shaped handle. She carefully stuck the key back into the keyhole and turned it until a click was heard. Then she had to sit back as the front of the model split down the center and slowly swing open to become a three-paneled display.

Both Sydney and Z’s eyes widened when they saw the interior of the model. There were three floors of uneven height, the middle floor being the smallest. It was a simple, barren hallway made in the exact likeness of the Academy’s many grey-blue corridors, complete with metal rafters spaced along the ceiling at proper intervals. In the center panel, the bottom level room was a replica of the Command Center while the top level was one of their own bedroom. A thick pink stripe adorned the wall on the right side while a yellow stripe adorned the left wall. Miniature furnishings filled the space: a bed, desk and chair, and a nightstand on each side, just like those that would be found in an occupied cadet room, except with the appropriate pink and yellow accents. There were other little things, personal touches like tiny CDs, pink furry pillows, and postage stamps to mimic posters on the walls. The decorations weren’t quite accurate, but that was expected since no one (hopefully!) knew the exact details of their bedroom except them.

In the left panel, the bottom floor was the rec room and housed the most astonishing number of miniature props of all, and the top floor was the boys’ bedroom. Along with the standard cadet room furniture with appropriately colored inflections, a tiny toaster, green dinosaur, and blue laptop computer could be found around the room.

Both top and bottom levels in the right panel were the zord hangar, in which sat five exquisitely detailed models of their Delta Runners. Sydney carefully took out Delta Runner 5, holding it up to the light from the window and loving how cute the little zord looked in the palm of her hand.

By now, Z had crawled out of bed and was sitting on the floor, examining Sydney’s gift as well. She took out the mini-replica of Delta Runner 4.

“Who made all these?” she mused aloud as she replaced the Delta Runner and stretched out on her stomach to poke around the Command Center in the center lower floor. “Hey, there are light switches in here.”

She reached out to touch one of the tiny buttons on the wall, but the last thing she expected was for it to work. To her surprise, the button depressed, and the Command Center was suddenly aglow with a soft blue light, just like the real life version was.

“Good friggin’ lord.”

Sydney’s eyes widened. “Wow.”

The two spent the next several minutes searching for every possible switch inside the replica. When they were done, the interior was lit like a Christmas tree. The middle hallway provided most of the light, the wall lined end to end with glowing panels like the real Academy corridors were. Z was disappointed to find that none of the props in the rec room worked, like the arcade games or the teeny television set. The food regenerator in the back corner did light up, though.

“Z, Z, look!” Sydney tugged excitedly on the Yellow Ranger’s sleeve and pointed to their bedroom in the center upper floor. Z glanced around it once, then twice.

“What am I looking at?”

“Look at the stripes on the wall,” instructed Sydney, who then proceeded to shut off the lights in the miniature room and turn them back on.

The stripes had seemed a pretty placid pink and yellow before, but now when she looked closer, Z could see the colors turned holographic with the light, containing a repeating pattern that actually moved. The yellow stripe looked like a field of golden grass swaying in the wind, and the pink stripe was a tessellation of flowers fluttering endlessly down.

Z reached out hesitantly to touch the paint, but the illusion didn’t stop. “How does it do that?”

“It’s a new kind of holographic paint,” explained Sydney, looking clearly delighted by this new find. “Very popular.” She giggled suddenly. “Look in the boys’ room.”

Z turned her gaze to see clouds drifting lazily by on the Blue Ranger’s wall. “What? Clouds for Sky? I’m sure he’s tired of the puns by now.”

Sydney giggled and shook her head. “No. Actually, I was thinking that the clouds kind of look like rabbits.”

“Huh?” Z scrutinized the blue stripe again. “I don’t see it.”

Sydney just giggled again, and Z turned her attention to the Green Ranger’s wall. She watched in fascination as a procession of single green leaves fluttered and looped all across the length of the stripe, just as real leaves would do if caught in a breeze.

“That’s pretty,” she heard Sydney murmur, who was peering over her shoulder. She nodded.

“But who built all this?” she asked. “And—no offence—by why a model of the Academy?”

“I don’t—” Sydney started to shrug, and then her eyes lit up in realization. “I’ll give you one guess.”

It took Z a moment to catch on. “But…why?”

“I don’t know.” Sydney started searching the floor again, lifting up the flaps of the box and peering underneath. “I’m hoping there’s a note.” She finally located a card-sized envelope that had somehow made it beneath her desk chair. On the back, her name was scrawled in a large, looping hand. She recognized it instantly.

“It’s from Sky,” she confirmed, ripping open the flap eagerly.

“Figures.” Z was holding Delta Runner 3 in her hand now. “SPD taints everything that guy does.”

Sydney just smiled as she pulled out the card. It had a simple cover, all blue except for the words Happy Birthday embossed in an elaborate silver script. It was very utilitarian, without the generous amounts of frill found on most greeting cards. In other words, it was very Sky. She flipped open the card.

Dear Syd,

I hope you still like dollhouses.

Love, Sky

There was a hastily scrawled ‘Happy Belated Birthday’ at the bottom, which looked very much like the sudden afterthought that it must have been. But it was the first ten words that melted her heart.

Z looked up when her roommate started laughing, blue eyes never leaving the open card she held in her hand. It was the Yellow Ranger’s opinion that Sydney even looked the tiniest bit misty-eyed for all her laughter.

“What’d he write?” Z ventured, extremely curious now.

“I have to see him,” said Sydney suddenly. She tossed the card to Z and shot to her feet. She was already shuffling out the door before Z could remind her that she was still only wearing her pink bathrobe, which wasn’t in any way indecent, but it was far less decorated than the way Sydney usually groomed herself.

Meanwhile, Sydney didn’t realize how strange her appearance was until she was already halfway to the boys’ room, and while she did fret in the back of her mind how bad she must have looked, she couldn’t stop her feet from moving. They carried her forward, until she nearly collided with Bridge just as he was exiting his and Sky’s room. The Green Ranger just grinned and put a finger to his lips, pointing inside the room with his other hand. Curiously, Sydney peered in and promptly broke out in a smile as well.

The Blue Ranger was sprawled on his stomach on his bed, one arm dangling down over the side and his feet hanging off the end with his shoes still on. He was sound asleep.

“Do you like your present?” asked Bridge in a whisper, and she turned a wide-eyed stare on him.

“You knew about it?”

“I found out this morning,” he gestured at Sky again, “when he walked in at six a.m. carrying a humungous pink box. With silver ribbon, and gold ribbon, and little gold stars and—”

Sydney cleared her throat.

“—and he made me be on the lookout for whenever you left your room so he could sneak it in.”

“Why couldn’t he just give it to me directly?”

“In case you didn’t like it.” Bridge looked at her skeptically and asked again, “Do you like it?”

“I love it!”

In fact, she wondered why she had never thought to milk Bridge for information on Sky before this. The two had been roommates for years, and if anyone could predict Sky’s temperament in a particular situation, it would be Bridge.

It was entirely too tempting, with the Blue Ranger lying there prone like that, to go in and give him the most disruptive wakeup call possible. Six a.m. Bridge had said, which meant Sky had been working on her present all night long, and apparently had collapsed into bed that morning too tired to even remove his jacket and shoes. This was the ice king who resented nearly all forms of romantic intimacy save for a few select exceptions.

The man was downright bizarre.

But so sweet, she thought with a smile.

She made her way over to his bedside and, holding back her hair in one hand, bent over and blew cold air in his upturned ear. Immediately he jerked awake, forcing her to rear back before their heads collided. His eyes were only open in little slits, and he looked sleepy, disorientated, and extremely irked. She hugged him, pressing her cheek to the spot between his shoulder blades. He just groaned and dropped his head back on his pillow.

“I love dollhouses,” she murmured, remembering the day she’d uttered those words in the Command Center in an offhand comment. She’d been sure no one had paid attention to them.

Sky mumbled something that sounded like ‘good’, but otherwise he didn’t show much interest in her presence. Neither of them moved for several seconds, and then she asked, “We’re still going on our date today, right?”

“Later?” was the garbled reply.

She sat up. “Bad form, Tate. You never keep the girl waiting.”

He cracked one eye open, and then he actually rolled over and sat up. Now flustered, she tried to stop him and tell him she was kidding. He rubbed his eyes tiredly with the heel of one hand. When his gaze finally came to settle on her, unreadable as usual, she flushed.

“Why are you in your bathrobe?” was all he said.

“I just came back from the shower,” she responded. “Go back to sleep. Bridge told me you were up all night.”

“Yeah. Do you like your present?”

“Yes! People always buy me stuff, but no one’s ever made me anything, nothing like that. It’s amazing,” she leaned forward and kissed his cheek, “and incredibly sweet.”

He grinned proudly, but it was interrupted by a wide yawn.

“You need your beauty sleep.” Her tone was teasing, but the comment completely passed him by.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She put a hand on his shoulder and pretended to push him back down on the bed. “Anything that helps to put you in a better mood. Take off your shoes first.”

He rolled his eyes and lay back, pulling his blanket haphazardly over his torso. When he continued to lie there awake, she frowned and asked, “What’s wrong?”

He was looking at her pointedly. “I can’t sleep with people watching me.”

“Huh—oh!” For whatever reason, she’d fully expected to watch him until he fell asleep. He gave her a weird look as she stood up and shuffled out of his room, her pink bathrobe adding just one more element of awkwardness to the situation.

Z was absent when she returned to her room, the birthday card left on top of the Academy-dollhouse. She snagged it on her way in and sat down with it on her bed, rereading the message inside a dozen more times. Her favorite part was ‘Love, Sky’. A standard signature, written in an endearing careless scrawl. Sky seemed like a ‘Sincerely’ type of guy; something far more neutral than the big L-word. Or maybe it was just that way to her. He probably saw absolutely no difference in signing with ‘Love’ or ‘Sincerely’ preceding his name. The more she thought about it, the blander the words became in her head. But then she’d glance at the card and at his handwriting, and she’d break out in a dreamy smile anew.

“Love, Sky,” she read the words so quietly, she did little more than mouth them to herself.

She didn’t love him (yet); there was no way she could have. She was still reveling in the giddiness of a two-year crush come to fruition. In the back of her mind, she was still taking everything with a grain of salt, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to encourage this relationship to its fullest potential. Sky had already proven himself to be more three-dimensional than he made himself appear, so who knew what could evolve in the future?

She went over to her closet where at the bottom she kept a highly decorated box filled with treasured keepsakes and other secret items. She intended to just slip the birthday card inside, but what stared out at her when she lifted the lid startled her.

A small journal documenting some of her earliest days in the Academy. It had beautiful leather binding, onto which she’d carelessly inked Syd + Sky inside a telltale heart. It was juvenile, silly, girlish, and prophetic.

What could evolve, indeed.

End

- -

Author’s Comment: It’s an end for us, but just the beginning for Syd and Sky, isn’t it?

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