Disclaimer: I don't own the characters-they belong to Saban.
Author's Note: So I'm in a fluff 'n stuff mood 'cause of the holiday. Enjoy the byproduct of that! Carter and Dana's first Valentine's Day...
The Best Part
Elvis was surely shaking his hips somewhere in heaven as "Teddy Bear" played over the speakers at the Pink Cadillac. The place was packed, but then, it was a Friday night and Valentine's Day to top it off. Carter Grayson drummed his fingers on the Formica table top as he and Dana Mitchell waited for their food. Dana was staring absently at the framed Chubby Checker record on the wall behind Carter's head, and Carter waved a hand in front of her face. "Quarter for your thoughts?" he said, and Dana blinked before smiling at him and leaning back in the booth.
"Quarter?" she teased. "Inflation's hit everything, I see."
"Just looked like there was more than a penny's worth going on in there," Carter said, pointing between her eyes. "What are you thinking about?"
She smiled. "I was just remembering Valentine's Day last year…do you remember?"
Carter frowned. "That was just after we became Rangers…right?"
Dana sighed. "Typical. Men are programmed to remember sports scores and steak sides," she told him.
"Hey, we weren't together then," Carter shrugged. "Therefore I have no need to remember it."
She shook her head. "Cute, Grayson, but that's no excuse." She leaned forward to be heard over the noise of Franki Valli. "Let me refresh your memory."
February 14th, 2000
Lightspeed Aquabase, Mariner Bay, California
Dana Mitchell's alarm clock went off precisely at 5:15 AM, but she'd been awake for a few minutes before that. She rolled out of bed and into the shower in one fluid movement-her pink blouse and gray slacks were hanging up already, her black heels tucked underneath them, ready for the day.
And, if truth be told, she hadn't really slept the night before. The past couple of days had been so intense that she wasn't sure if the adrenaline would ever wear off. Captain Bill Mitchell-her father- had selected her to be the Pink Power Ranger for the Lightspeed Rescue project. They'd morphed for the first time and used their powers and abilities just two days ago to defeat a demonic monster that was wreaking havoc in the city.
Today, the team was scheduled for a full day of training exercises. Dana was nervous. She was, after all, the youngest on the team at 18, and the daughter of the man in charge. They hadn't had much time to chat the day the demon attacked, and yesterday, her father had sent them all to grab their things to move into the Aquabase, so she hadn't seen any of them.
Her stuff was already here. She'd been living here since she'd graduated from high school. Yet another way she was different from her teammates.
At 7:00 AM she was in the mess hall grabbing breakfast. The chef had made cinnamon rolls and she could see them disappearing onto people's trays as they went down the line. She hoped there was one left-she could use the sugar. Closer…closer…her hand reached out for the tongs to grab the melty goodness…and closed on top of another hand.
She let go instantly. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she apologized, and looked up into the gray eyes of her teammate, Carter Grayson, the newly-christened Red Ranger and leader of their team.
"You go ahead," he said graciously. "I'm already on my second cup of coffee, and if I eat that, I'll be more hyper than Kelsey," he told her, referring to their teammate in Yellow.
"No, you were there first, obviously," Dana protested. "I'll just grab something out of the vending machine down the hall before our meeting."
Carter shook his head. "I can see you're going to be a force to be reckoned with," he said. "I have an idea." He grabbed the roll off the tray and put it on his plate, already heaped with the industrial scrambled eggs and oatmeal. He beckoned for her to follow him over to the table he was sitting at in the corner, near one of the windows that looked out into the ocean depths. He unpackaged his plastic silverware and cut the roll in half. Then, he plunked half of it down on her plate. "Here," he told her.
"Carter, you really didn't-"
"Oh, sure, I did," he replied. "After all, we're gonna need to start working together, right?" He glanced across the room to where Joel Rawlings was sitting, flirting with one of the cafeteria workers. "Besides," he added. "We're both gonna need to be alert so we can poke Joel with a pencil if he starts to doze off."
Dana smiled, sticking a finger into the sticky white icing on the cinnamon roll and licking it off her fingers. Carter looked at her curiously. She blushed. "T-the icing is the best part," she said quickly. She stood up. "Um, I'm gonna go get some juice." She got up so fast she nearly upset her tray, and then took it with her across the room.
She didn't go back to sit with Carter…so she missed the way his gray eyes followed her across the room and to the table she'd chosen with a small smile.
"You know, you could've come back over to sit with me," Carter said.
"I felt so awkward after that whole thing that I was probably as red as your uniform," she told him honestly. "I woke up nervous that morning 'cause it was the first full day I'd have with you guys together and I wasn't sure what you'd think of me."
"What we'd 'think'?" Carter pressed and Dana nodded.
"Well, I mean, this random girl shows up in a limo with two suits, pulls you out of your day jobs and tells you that you've been selected to fight demons. And said random girl is the boss's daughter, who lives in this weird underwater base..." She shrugged. "I was nervous."
"You want to know what I thought?" Carter asked her. She nodded, waiting. "I thought that this pretty girl could've told me I'd been selected to be a clown at the circus and I'd have done it," he said. "And that all that cloak and dagger stuff made her mysterious."
Dana rolled her eyes, and he laughed. "But the best part was that even though she thought she was awkward...I thought she was funny, and smart, and kickass...and that I was excited to get to know her."
"Ever the charmer, Carter Grayson," Dana said, though secretly she was very pleased.
"Also...you still lick the icing off first," Carter noted as he popped a fry into his mouth and watched Dana poke at her dessert-a big piece of chocolate cake.
"It's like I told you," Dana said. "That's the best part."
"Really?" Carter stretched a finger out, aiming for her dessert. Dana smacked it away with a grin.
"Mine," she told him, shaking a finger at him.
Author's Note II: The first episode of PRLR, "Operation Lightspeed" aired 12FEB2000. Your fun fact for the day.
