Repairs by Torchlight
Disclaimer: Power Rangers isn't mine. Never has been, never will be.
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I'm not totally happy with this fic, but I'm not sure why. Any feedback would be appreciated, because I'm kind of stuck on how to fix it.
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"Tommy, will you pass me the pliars?"
Tommy switched the torch from his right hand to his left. He held the torch steady on the open panel whilst he groped for the pliars. It took him a moment to find the smooth, plastic handle. He started to pass it to Andros.
In the dark, his knuckles banged against the panel.
"Damn it!"
"Watch the torch!" Andros protested as the light illuminating the serpent's nest of wires he was working on wobbled. He took the pliars from the other ranger.
"Sorry," Tommy muttered. He settled back to watch the ranger work.
It had been a disasterous mission. And to think, it had all started so well.
They'd thought they'd finally found Gerrok's base of operations; a small moon in the Piro system. It had sounded promising. It was far out of the way of any trading routes, and had once been part of Zedd's empire. Serpentera could very well be there.
Tommy, as the leader of Forever Red, had wanted to see it for himself. Andros hadn't been keen on the idea, but he'd eventually given in. They'd done some fast-talking to the Morphin' Council, gotten the red zeo powers back (on loan), and headed out for the Piro system.
Piro turned out to be an ingeniously evil set-up. They'd escaped by the skin of their teeth.
A thousand parsecs later, 'escaped' turned out to be a relative term when the engines sputtered and died. Not only had Gerrok's followers tried to put a few bullet holes through the rangers, they'd also sabotaged the mega-ship.
Robots were tiresomely thorough in their attempts to kill people. They never left anything to chance.
The rangers had lost all but auxilery power. The lights were out. They were frantically repairing the engine by the weak light of a torch. Well, at least Andros was. Tommy held the torch and passed him the tools when he asked for them.
It said a lot about Tommy's life at the moment that this life-or-death situation was immensely preferable to being on earth. At least out here, he didn't have to think about certain…people.
"…Tommy?"
Tommy jerked out of his thoughts.
"What?"
"I said, would you pass me the magnifier?"
Tommy silently found the tool and started to pass it to Andros. His knuckles banged the open panel again. Pain shot through his hand and he dropped the magnifier, letting it clatter to the ground.
"Son of a – !" He lost it right then, swearing loudly.
"You right?" Andros peered at him in concern, his face white and washed out in the light of the torch.
"Yeah," Tommy said grouchily, sucking his knuckle. "I'm fine. Lets get on with it. What do you need?"
Andros put the scanner down.
"Look, Tommy…"
"Andros," Tommy snapped. "We're in the middle of a battlezone with no light, and in a few hours – no air. Maybe now's not the best time for talking."
"Fine," Andros bit off acidly. "Hold the torch a bit higher will you?"
Tommy lifted it sullenly. There was a whole minute of silence, while Andros twisted and poked, and Tommy fumed in the dark.
However, being married to Ashley must really be having an effect on Andros, because the stoic red ranger eventually made another effort.
"Look, I can see that something's bothering you," he said. "And we're going nowhere for a while. So if you want to talk about it…"
Tommy remained quiet. He and Andros were hardly close. There was a great deal of respect between them, but none of the closer moments that would define a friendship.
Even if they had spent more time together, Tommy doubted they would ever have been truly comfortable around one another. There was something between them that prevented true comradship; a slight edge of competition. Perhaps, sub-consciously, each man recognised in the other a spirit too alike to his own for comfort.
Still, they were probably about to die, so…
"David and Kat are dating," Tommy blurted out.
Andros' hands slowed. He looked up at the other ranger.
"Kat's your ex?" He said cautiously.
"Yes."
Andros' hands started working again, connecting and re-connecting wires. His eyes were on his work, but his attention was clearly on Tommy.
"And David's your…"
"Brother," Tommy said bitterly. "Yes, my own brother."
There was silence for a while.
"Are you mad at him?" Andros asked finally. Tommy fought the urge to shout at him. What type of question was that?
"No, of course not," he said bitterly. "My twin brother's dating my ex-girlfriend. Of course I'm not mad."
Anyone else would have shut up, but Andros either missed the sarcasm or didn't care. Maybe he was so used to being the embittered, grouchy ranger that seeing it in others didn't faze him.
"I have a twin too, you know," he said.
Tommy grunted.
"Karone? Last time I checked, she was dating Zhane – not your ex-lover."
"Actually…she is."
Tommy stared at him, puzzled. It took a moment for him to click. Images rose up in his mind, previously unimportant corners of memory. The odd closeness between Andros and Zhane…the conspiratal smiles they shared, the casual touches…
"Oh," he said slowly. "You and he…uh…"
"Yes," Andros said. "We're both bi. It's actually very common on our planet. Sixty percent of the population, in fact."
He was very focused on his work, not looking at Tommy. Despite the casualness of his voice, red stained the space ranger's cheeks. Obviously, he wasn't very used to talking about his sexual preferences.
"Oh." Tommy fidgeted. Finally, he was unable to contain his curiousity anymore. "So how did it end with Zhane?"
Andros shrugged.
"Two years in a cryogenic tube…it changes a few things, you know? By the time he'd come out of it, I'd moved on."
"To Ashley." Tommy made the obvious connection.
"Yeah." Andros was silent for so long that Tommy thought he wasn't going to elaborate. But then he spoke abruptly. "It was hard. When Ashley came along, I was just so sick of being alone. Sick of pretending that he was coming back. It was perhaps both the hardest and the easiest thing I've ever done, letting myself love her."
"And so by the time Zhane woke up…"
"There was no room for him anymore," Andros said sadly. "Not the way he wanted."
He reached for the bio-scanner.
"So what was it like when Zhane and Karone started going out?" Tommy asked hesitantly.
"Weird," Andros sighed. "Very weird. On the one hand, there was my little sister. I wanted her all to myself. I didn't want any boyfriend stealing her away just yet. And on the other hand, there was Zhane, my first love."
Tommy smiled.
"It must have been an interesting time on the megaship," he said.
"That's one way of putting it." Andros smirked, looking not unlike his sister back when she was Astronema. "Would you believe that the Synthatron would only give Zhane asparagus for an entire week?"
"Asparagus?" Tommy raised an eyebrow in the dark. "Andros, that's just petty."
"Maybe, but it made me feel better. And it wasn't anything I'd truly regret later on."
"What did you do to Karone?"
Andros gave him a horrified look.
"Tommy, she used to be the Princess of Darkness. She can smell a practical joke a mile off! None of us play tricks on her, not since Carlos – "
He broke off, shuddering at some dark memory.
"O-kay." Tommy made a mental note never to play a prank on Karone. Ever.
Andros took the flashlight from his hand and peered in the panel. The jumble of wires made no more sense to Tommy now than they had several hours ago.
"I think that about does it," the kerovan ranger said. "It's not perfect, but it should hold us together."
"You sure?" Tommy asked.
"Trust me." Andros closed the panel and began flicking switches.
Tommy held his breath until he heard the engine hum to life. The lights spluttered on. Andros grinned, wiping his hands on a cloth. In the light, a streak of grease down the side of his face was visible.
"See? What did I tell you?"
Tommy nodded thoughtfully. He stood.
"Lets get a move on," he suggested. "Knowing Gerrok, he'll want to make sure the job's done."
"Right."
Andros followed him out of the engine room. Tommy cleared his throat as he walked.
"When we're clear of Gerrok's sensors," he said casually. "Do you mind if I make a call?"
"Sure," Andros said. "Where to?"
"Earth. I thought I might give David a call. I haven't spoken to him in weeks, and I wouldn't want him to start thinking I hate him or something."
"Good on you, Tommy. Be the bigger man."
"Bigger man?" Tommy shook his head. "Andros, in case you haven't noticed, my brother isn't a reformed evil warlord. He can't turn me into a frog if I annoy him. Besides."
He gave a wolfish grin.
"That asparagus has given me some ideas…"