Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers Ninja Steel.

Though it was better than the alternative, Kelly's space was small. She had gone from having her own room and all the privacy she could want or need, to having to share a bedroom with Hayley. It meant everything about Hayley's bedroom had to be divided up. Hayley's desk was shared space for her and Kelly to do their homework, but the rest of the space around Kelly's futon was hers to do with as she pleased.

It was a very generous sacrifice from Hayley and her family. They had taken Kelly in at a time where she desperately needed a roof over her head. She had always known her parents wouldn't be happy when she came out to them, and knew the day would come when she would have to face that reality.

She just hadn't expected it to be while she was still in high school. And if she was honest with herself, she hadn't expected to be completely kicked out of her home and shunned from her family. She didn't think she would wind up a kid on the streets, seeking shelter wherever she could find it, even in the worst of places.

Fortunately, that latter part wasn't true. Without hesitating Hayley had invited her to stay her parents did the same. Kelly had more here than she could ask for. Still, it left her feeling a little cramped.

"It's temporary," Sarah said from the desk chair as she noticed the uncomfortable look on Kelly's face as she tried to find a spot to dump her school bag where it wouldn't be in the way. "Once we finish high school, we'll figure something out."

It was a lot of we-talk, Kelly noticed, for a couple who only recently crossed the line from dating to girlfriends, but it wasn't too fast. Kelly lost everything when she was outed to her parents. When they made her leave the house, they forced her to choose Sarah over everything she once had. She had to start fresh.

If Kelly didn't already think Sarah would be important to her – if she didn't already care deeply, then it wouldn't have matter to her if her father didn't want her to see Sarah again. She never would have been outed.

They were being forced to think long term. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but Kelly would have to quickly get used to planning her life with Sarah.

"Hey, it's better than nothing," Kelly said jokingly, but she knew full well that was her only other option. Sarah had offered to let her stay with her family, but Kelly had chosen to decline that. She already had a place with Hayley and it was already enough that they were forced to think long term. Kelly didn't want to risk moving way to fast by moving in with her new girlfriend. She wanted to keep things moving as slowly as she could, at least until she and Sarah were more established on their own, as well as together.

"At least the Fosters are pretty sweet," Sarah smiled. "They're cool with us being up here."

"We are just doing homework."

"They don't know that," Sarah smirked, then turned to the computer on the desk. She had a science paper she needed to finish before the end of the week while Kelly was busy working on an English paper. After dinner, they would help each other out the rest of their work. While Sarah contemplated her ideas, she quickly checked her twitter page – just as a quick distraction. There, trending, was Kelly's father's name.

Sarah thought about ignoring it. If Kelly meant nothing to him, then it was best not to bring him up, especially so soon after Kelly was kicked out from her house. However, curiosity got the better of Sarah so while Kelly was caught up in her essay, Sarah clinked on the link.

Kelly's father was a journalist. He had come to Summer Cove hoping to get his big break through the Rangers. There was always something to write about whenever they were in town and if he was lucky, he would catch something ground breaking that no one else had. Maybe he would discover the identity of the Rangers. Sarah wasn't sure what he was hoping for, but knew it had to be along those lines. So when she saw he had written an article she wasn't surprised. It did shock her to see that the article, which had only been posted that morning, was trending nationally. When Sarah read more, she found out why.

Her blood boiled. In his article, he argued that homosexuality was a mental illness and that people who sought same sex relationships were bad. His words exactly:

"Anyone who choses to date someone of their same gender is perverted and dangerous. We need to stop being politically correct and we need to start taking action before this becomes an even bigger problem than it already has. Kids are being overexposed to pornographic images of men on men and women on women and it's corrupting their beliefs. They think this is okay. Children who are raised right and taught our wholesome and traditional values are straying away from the parents who love them and into the darkness either by the celebrities they worship, the teachers who tell them that this is okay, or their rebellious, good for nothing friends who want to cause as much hurt and as much pain as they can…"

It went on, Sarah saw. He brought up many arguments to support his claim, none of which made any sense to Sarah.

Worse than all that, though, was the bottom of the page – the comment section. While there was an outcry from people who, like Sarah, believed this all to be a harmful, backwards and disgusting rant, there were just as many people who were in support of it, and praising Kelly's father for finally speaking the "truth".

"Sarah? You okay?" Kelly asked and snapped Sarah from the article. She closed the link and nodded her head.

Kelly couldn't see this. Sarah was sure it was nothing she hadn't heard already from her father, but she couldn't see the detail he included in his statements and she couldn't see the support he received from people all over the country.

"Yeah, fine, just… saw something stupid," Sarah said. "You know, the kind of stupid that makes you wonder about people."

"Like watching Victor and Monty?" Kelly smirked and Sarah nodded her head again.

"Kind of," she picked up her bag. Kelly noticed it looked like Sarah was packing up to leave.

"What about our homework?"

"I can help you with that tomorrow," Sarah promised. "I've just… I forgot something at home and… I can't work on this paper without it."

"What is it?"

"Uh… notes," Sarah said. "I have notes from class and notes from other research and stuff and… yeah, I need it. We'll get together tomorrow, alright?"

"Yeah, sure," Kelly said. "But you owe me a study night."

"Promise," Sarah smiled as she gave Kelly a kiss and then darted off. Kelly rolled her eyes, then looked over to her math textbook. She put it in her bag.

"Guess I'm not even going to bother looking at you until tomorrow," she stated and then looked over to the computer. Sarah had been acting strangely right before she left, and while Kelly didn't think she needed to press it, she was curious. She opened the computer, but Sarah had already closed whatever it was she had been looking at. "Always clear the search history. Clearly she has nothing to hide from her parents," Kelly chuckled to herself as she opened up the history page.

She didn't consider this snooping, but if there was something that Sarah saw that freaked her out or upset her, Kelly wanted to know what she could do to help. She had already decided that if there was nothing out of the ordinary in the history page, she would drop it. However, she saw her father's name as one of the links and decided to open it.

"Great, he's ranting," she sighed. She had heard some of her father's rants about homosexuality already, so this was nothing new. There was, of course, a lot more detail and passion in this article then she had seen, but nothing he said surprised her. They were elaborations of beliefs he had already voiced.

The support he received in the comments section also wasn't surprising to Kelly. Her father always surrounded himself with people who thought like him because anyone else was "too stupid to be functioning." Family friends, co-workers who were invited to dinner, all shared his belief. And since they were often all reporters, politics was not a topic that was off the table.

Kelly had become mostly numb to this. It did still hurt, it was scary, but this was nothing new to her. She did remember how it felt when she was first confronted with it, though. She had sobbed in her room for hours, wishing she had never been born and wishing she had never been cursed with being different. She remembered the fear she felt at just the thought of her parents ever finding out.

It was hell. True hell.

"Dammit, dad," she muttered and shut off the computer. "You just can't leave it well enough alone, can you?"

-Ninja-Steel-

Sarah rushed home. She wasn't sure why, but after reading the article, she felt she had to leave. She didn't think she could concentrate on Kelly while it was all still fresh in her mind and justified that she would be of better help and company to her girlfriend the next day. However, her mood had completely shifted from how she had been with Kelly and she couldn't explain it.

"You're home early," Jenny called out from the kitchen when she saw Sarah coming in. "I thought you were studying with Kelly?"

"Leave me alone," Sarah grumbled and went straight up to her room. Concerned, Jenny followed and knocked on the door.

"Sarah? Is everything okay?" there was no answer. "Is there anything you want to talk about?"

"People are jerks!" Sarah shouted and the door swung open. Jenny was surprised to see that, despite Sarah's obvious bad mood, she had been let in. She remembered being a teenager and when she felt angry or upset, she wanted distance from everyone, especially her parents.

"Who are we talking about?"

"I mean, this guy just kicked his daughter out of the house, and is now writing a freaking novel saying how he's in the right and he did everything right and he's the victim?"

"Oh," Jenny sighed. She had heard about the article on the news. Apparently, a journalist had taken it upon himself to tackling the issue of homosexuality in a very controversial and hurtful way, and he had gained a lot of support in doing so. Jenny didn't pay any mind to it at the time. She didn't believe him. Only now did it occur to her that she should have paid a little more attention.

"And he's saying something needs to be done about it," Sarah's own rant continued. "Like, somehow, Kelly's the one who hurt him! How? I mean, how can someone think that? She did nothing! He kicked her out! He dragged her out of the house and… If Calvin and Hayley weren't there… Why do people think like this, huh?"

This was a big question, Jenny knew. All why questions from kids were loaded, no matter their age. Jenny's only response was to shrug.

"I don't know."

"And how can people support this?" Sarah asked.

How questions were the same as why. Jenny shrugged again.

"I don't know."

"And if Kelly sees this," Sarah said. "Oh god, after everything's she's already been through, if she sees what her dad has to say about her… He hurts her, he plays the victim and he leaves me to pick up the pieces? She doesn't need this right now!"

"I know," Jenny agreed. "It's not fair."

The doorbell rang. Jenny was happy to excuse herself from the conversation only because it would give Sarah a minute to calm down, and more importantly, it would give Jenny a chance to think about how she wanted to proceed. Telling Sarah what she did and didn't know wasn't going to work for much longer.

When she answered the door, it was Kelly waiting for her. She let the younger woman in, but was quick to tell her, "Now may not be a good time."

"I think Sarah saw something that upset her," Kelly said.

"You know?" Jenny asked. Kelly nodded.

"She left in a bit of a hurry and acting a little weird. I checked what she had been looking at on the computer and found it."

"Are you okay?" Jenny asked.

"It's hard to read," Kelly admitted, "But his point isn't something I haven't already heard. I kind of learned not to let it get to me so much. Is Sarah okay?"

"She's angry," Jenny said.

"I was too the first time," Kelly nodded. "And scared and upset. It's hard."

"The first time?" Jenny asked. She did have to assume that this article wasn't the first time Kelly heard her father speak so poorly of the LGBT community, but she was a little curious as to why Kelly's reaction wasn't similar to or even worse than Sarah's. After all, to Sarah, the man was a stranger – someone whose beliefs didn't matter. To Kelly, this man was her father. He was the man who gave her life and the man who was supposed to love and care for her unconditionally.

"I think it was five years ago," Kelly answered. "It was a bit of a roller coaster for a while, so the actual year is a little fuzzy to me. I just remembered taking it really hard when it happened and I'm sure that's what Sarah's going through now."

"Okay, forgive me but… I really can't follow," Jenny said. "You don't care what your father said?"

"I care," Kelly said with a shrug. "It's just… it's not new to me anymore. Sarah told me that when she came out to you and her dad, you took it really well. The school's a really great place and her friends are all really sweet and supportive and as great as that is, she's been sheltered.

"Sheltered?" Jenny asked not because she doubted Kelly. What the younger woman said did make sense. She was just surprised because sheltered was never a word Jenny imagined being used to describe Sarah. As much as she and Bill had tried to keep her safe, Sarah was always up for adventure, for taking risks and for trying new things. A fearless child was not often one who was sheltered. It was usually the opposite.

"I'm sure you have a lot you want to tell Sarah about this," Kelly said. "But do you mind if maybe I talk with her for a bit? I've been through this before and I really think I can help her get past it."

"Be my guest," Jenny gestured up the stairs. Despite what Kelly believed, she had nothing prepared for Sarah. She probably should have. When Sarah came out to her and Bill, they should have discussed how they would handle something like this if it happened. She was sure if Bill were still around, he would know what to do, but Jenny was lost.

She followed Kelly up the stairs. She didn't know how she could help, but she knew she had to be there.