A/N: First of all, this is a request from AquitarStar. All the ideas are hers, I'm just writing it for her. I might have added in a little of my own creations but the story's plot belongs to her. There will be Ashley/Andros, Tommy/Kim, Jason/Trini and some others that I'm not sure of as of now. But anyway, happy reading!
She is dead to the world.
The only thing she thought was constant in her life, the one dependability she always had, is leaving her.
She says one final good bye to all the people of KO-35, seeing them wave sadly to her and her friends. Well, not all of them. Not the one she really wanted to come with her.
She flashes back to their conversation, when he had felt her heart shattering and the heavy pieces thudding in her chest.
"I'd never thought I'd have to same goodbye," she says, looking earnestly into his eyes. The eyes she saw in her dreams, the eyes that could see straight through her.
"I know," he answers, the small hints of remorse coloring his tone.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" she asks him imploringly. He sighs, taking her small hands in his scarred ones. She feels what's coming, she knows it, but she can't make herself admit. If she denies it, maybe it's not going to happen.
But it is happening.
"KO-35 is my home," he explains. Ashley looks down, hiding her forthcoming tears. The feeling of sadness is overwhelming her. It's crushing her lungs as she realizes it was doomed from the start. No matter how much she did love him, that wasn't enough.
"Come on Ashley," Cassie says, taking her back to the present. Ashley shakes her head, to clear it of those thoughts, but they won't leave her alone. They're in that one place she can't escape, can't hide from-her mind.
"Yeah, yeah," she says distractedly. Karone and Zhane she can pick out easily, them wearing masks of losing great things as they continue to wave. The seas of faces around them swarm together, becoming just an ocean of meaninglessness. They all run together into one beautiful picture of sadness and love and rebirth of a new life.
But she can only focus on him.
The last time she'll ever see him and he's narrowing his eyes at them, against the bright sunlight. The weather is so unlike her feelings at the moment, light and perfect as opposed to dark and drowning in rainstorms of tears.
She acts before she can think as she runs down the ramp and throws himself into his arms one last time. He is warm, strong, comforting. Even now, when everything's falling apart, all because of him, he's pulling it together by just being there. And that's what's killing her most of all.
"I'm going to miss you, Andros," she whispers, her voice muffled against the fabric of his suit. She feels his hands tighten around her back and hopes he still feels the same way for her as she does for him, even though they never said it. She wants him to tell her it's all a lie, that she isn't losing him. She's not losing him to the abyss of time.
Is she?
I need to tell him. I need to.
It's now or never.
"Andros, I…" But she can't finish. Even now, even when it's the last time, she can't tell him. She just looks up into his eyes, his breathtaking eyes that she falls through all the time. The eyes that can hide emotions as well as broadcast them. The eyes that for so long were just a mask.
"I'm going to miss you too, Ash," he responds lovingly. Then his voice turns firm "But you need to go now, back to your home. For this is mine. Good bye." And he gently pushes her away. She desperately wants to cling to him, to stay with him. Her hands begin to close around his shirt… but she stops herself.
If he doesn't want her anymore, she's not going to beg him.
So she wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, trying to clear them of the misty tears. Nodding, she bites her lip and turns to go back up the ramp. The others are watching her, their sympathy written on their faces. After one last goodbye, they walk back into the AstroMegaship. Cassie puts her hand on her friend's shoulder, knowing how hard this is for her. To leave behind the thing that she loved most of all, though no one knew how close he is to her heart.
Ashley walks over to the panel that has the button that will close them off from the rest of their lives forever. She never breaks eye contact with Andros. They keep their eyes locked on one another, her trying to tell him with everything she has that she doesn't want to leave him. He's looking back just as despondently.
Ashley takes a deep breath. This is it. This is goodbye…forever.
She places her palm against the button and pushes, sealing her fate. Turning her head, she watches the ramp close up before her, obscuring the faces of the civilians of KO-35. She sees Andros's face, looking almost as if it's pleading with her. But she can't do it anymore.
The metal rises up, allowing her one last look at his visage. And it's when she truly sees him. His true self. What he kept hidden from everyone, even her. The little crack through his armor was happening in front of her and it flashes before her. All those times she took for granted, all those times that she could look at him, touch him, comfort him, they were all gone. She never appreciated his beauty until now.
Now, when it was all gone.
She lifts her head to the ceiling, trying to stop the tears that threaten to overflow. Taking deep breaths, she walks into the main room.
She takes a seat next to Cassie, her eyes already soulless and hollow, her mood matching the gray walls of the room. She needs to get out of there. Yet at the same time, she wants to stay. But the longer she does, the more it will hurt her.
The deeper it will cut.
"You gonna be okay?" Cassie asks her softly. It takes a few seconds for Cassie's words to echo through her mind and it takes even longer for her to form a sentence. It's just, she wasn't…wasn't working. She could barely function now, without him.
"I miss him so much," Ashley whispers under her breath, spilling out everything she ever felt for him and everything she will feel in that simple, short sentence.
Cassie takes her hand for comfort and although it is helping, Ashley wants to push it away. She doesn't want sympathy, she doesn't want pity. She wants Andros.
"Decca, set a course for Earth." TJ's voice seems loud in the quietness of the command center. It vibrates off the walls.
"Course for Earth set…will reach Earth in approximately five hours," Decca responds promptly. Ashley stiffens. Five hours. Five hours. How can she survive five hours in a place where everything reminds her of him, where memories take place in every corner of the ship?
"Why don't you lay down?" Cassie suggests to Ashley, seeing her tense up. She knows how bad she's feeling and wants to help but has no idea how to. "Get some sleep."
"Okay," Ashley agrees emotionlessly. It's scary seeing her like this. She gets up and trudges from the room as her friends shoot each other worried looks.
Ashley walks down the hallways to her old room. Trying so hard not to think of old past memories, to travel back down those roads. But they won't leave her alone.
She loved him. She loves him. She gave him everything, risked her life, even. And after all that, he chose his planet over them. His home over her.
But…she was his home, right? Wasn't that what they promised?
No. That's what she had promised, that's what she had thought. She never told him. And now he's gone. She let another heartbeat go by when she didn't tell him what he needed to know. And it was too late.
She reaches her room, exhausted by the little effort it gave her. Ashley tumbles onto her bed, not even bothering to turn on the lights. In fact, she likes the darkness, the quiet. But at the same time, in the silence, she finds it too loud, too demanding, too eerie to be comforting.
"Decca?" she asks softly, her voice hoarse. A small, red light blinks at her through the obsidian blackness. And it soothes her to know that she's not alone, that someone's there.
Not the someone she needs, though.
"Yes Ashley?" Somehow, Decca's voice, in its official, pompous sound, makes the corners of her mouth lift. But that's it. It barely touches her heart.
"Never mind." Ashley yawns, realizing how tired she really is. And it's not just from the battles or the strain or leaving Zhane and Karone and KO-35 behind.
It's from love.
The struggles that come from love, the pain it causes, the thinking it makes you do about who you really are.
It was beautiful, loving him that is. It was joyful and hopeful and deep and true. It went deeper than her very skin, then her very soul. But somehow, it wasn't enough.
The joy she had from loving him feels like an instant, as compared to the sorrow that is soon to come.
He made her feel vulnerable. Open to the world. Like he could read her. She gave him a piece of her that no matter how raw and cracked it left her, she doesn't want it back.
It's so powerful. It's so dangerous and overwhelming and scary and comforting and soulful. It made her think, it made her see what was really important. It made her want to break the rules a little bit, take that leap of faith, use that hidden strength inside of her to feel it. And in the end, all it left her with was the feeling of losing it all.
It hurt her. It tore her up inside and rampaged her mind. But she stayed. She stayed with him, she stayed in love with him because she thought it was worth it. That it was worth something.
But it wasn't.
What can she do? She's broken now, left alone and untouched.
No one understands her. No one can help her. She's alone in this battle, alone in this struggle. What can she do?
Ashley bolts upright, her mind reminding her of the one person that could help her, that knew at least a little of what she was feeling. Someone who had actually felt these sensations of painful and powerful love.
She opens the top drawer of the bedside table, her fingernails groping for the cell phone she had got before she became a ranger. They hadn't needed cell phones, they had their communicators. But she had still kept it.
Her nails scrape the metal until she feels the cool, small square beneath her hand. She picks it up and dials the number. Even in the dark, she can still type it in. she lifts it to her ear, biting her lip nervously. At least this was a better feeling then just sitting around and moping for herself. She was actually doing something about her broken heart.
The phone rings once, twice, three times. Finally it's picked up on the other end. Ashley speaks first, her voice a little shaky.
"Hey Kim? It's me. I need a favor."