Author's Note: Just a lil' fun fanfic I've been talking about with my friends and threw together for them. I apologize if my writing is terrible or my plots are ridiculous.
Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers or any related media or characters. The story idea is my own but the rest isn't. Everything is copyrighted to its respective owners.
If you review, it'll make me smile and I'll try to respond to positive ones or questions here.
WARNING!: This fic will contain slash, femslash and possibly even some het (le gasp). Nothing m-rated, mind you, but it will contain pairings. Please keep this in mind. Pairings included are Dillon/Ziggy, Flynn/Gemma, Scott/Summer, Tenaya/Dr. K.
WARNING 2!: Contains some spoilers for certain plot points in the series, and is slightly AU. I won't be following the series exactly at some points so you have been warned.
K had needed several moments to think and maybe even cry before she even wanted to discuss trying to build the memory retriever. By this point, she felt like the weight of the world was crashing down on her shoulders, rather than just resting there like normally. She'd spent so many years believing that whatever family she'd originally had didn't care enough to rescue her from the Soup. Now she didn't quite know what to believe and Ziggy didn't remember enough to tell her different.
For her part, Tenaya at least knew how to be comforting at a time like this. She herself had gotten a revelation of this sort before and knew pretty well what her love was going through, even if a few details were different. She, for one, had also had it revealed that she wasn't a robot and had to come to terms with having attempted to slaughter her own flesh and blood on a daily basis. Dr. K had at least been on the same side as her family, but had thought poorly of them for many years to the point of being cold to a person who strongly reminded her of them. It wasn't as bad by far, but still a bit traumatizing.
The former Attackbot sat in K's desk chair, holding the younger girl to her chest and tracing calming circles on her back. Summer had left a while ago, helping Ziggy back up to his room so he could rest better, and they'd locked up the room, a slightly new feature to the doors to prevent interruption at times like this. The raven haired genius was snuggled up against her girlfriend's chest and trying to calm down after a long bout of tears.
Tenaya patted the younger girl's shoulder a bit after a while of this, "Could be worse," she offered sympathetically with a slight smirk, "You haven't been trying to kill him for the past year and a half."
At this, K let out a small hint of a laugh, "That is a matter of opinion." These small moments together were nice, and they did wonders for her tension, which in turn did wonders for her relationship with the rangers. Scott had even commented she was starting to bark orders less and act more like a person than a test subject. Dr. K would vehemently deny acting like a test subject – but then again, she'd also vehemently deny that she ever 'snuggled', which Tenaya tended to deny as well. Thankfully, only Ziggy and Summer accused them of that so far, and Ziggy hadn't been totally coherent at the time.
Sometime between when they'd left the Ranger Room and started heading towards Ziggy's, he and Summer had a change of plans. The young ranger had had quite enough of resting and being away from people for the present, and he wanted to be able to hang out in the main room thank you very much. So the blonde had escorted him over to the couch and there he sat, talking back and forth with Gem and Gemma, who had managed to find crayons and were attempting to draw with them on large sheets of white paper spread over the coffee table. He'd eventually joined in their fun by making shadow puppets across the paper for them to trace or draw things in response to.
After about a half an hour of this, Ziggy was feeling much better. True, he was still hella weak from that bout of sickness he'd gotten – a major side effect from that treatment, K had said – but he was actually feeling more emotionally stable and happy. Gem and Gemma knew better than to question how he was feeling and had merely asked if he wanted to join their coloring when he'd sat down and just went with whatever it took to cheer him up.
At one point, Scott wandered over to watch over his shoulder. The Red Ranger had meant to make some sort of comment about being glad to see his subordinate feeling better, but ended up just staring in awe as Ziggy made a dragon with his shadows, for which Gem was making rawring sound effects and Gemma was drawing a fiery eyed unicorn to combat it, shouting about vile fiends. And somehow, the only thought that managed to survive in Scott's head at that moment was that he'd never actually gotten to see the younger man's hands when he did those ridiculous puppets and now wondered if maybe he should have taken him up on seeing how he did it before now.
The little gathering turned into a full on party after Flynn wandered over and joined in the awe and confusion. Somehow, things had gone from there to Scott and Flynn joining Ziggy on the couch and half helping in the coloring, and then Summer showed up with a pizza and things got really crazy. It'd have all just been a blur of fun and laughter, but the curly haired puppeteer couldn't help but feel a nagging sadness in the back of his head that Dillon was steadily avoiding the little gathering.
During a point in the evening where everyone was distracted, the green ranger managed to slip away from the others to go check on his partner. Dillon was seated in the Fury and looking sullen, which was something he was almost as good at doing as smirking like a devil. Ziggy was about to open his mouth and ask if he wanted a slice of pizza when the older man stopped him,
"Go away, Ziggy. I don't want to talk to you."
Sighing, the younger ranger rolled his eyes and reached out to lightly smack Dillon's shoulder. "You need to stop assuming things. I know you don't want to talk. I came to see if you were hungry." Honestly, Ziggy had been hoping they were getting past this – the avoiding him for no reason, the being sullen and grouchy alone in the corner, the excessive protection of Tenaya, it had temporarily started to stop back in Attica and yet here he was doing this again. With another roll of his eyes, Ziggy walked off, leaving Dillon to stare after him, wondering vaguely when he'd gotten the balls to dare try and hit him, and why did he have to wear jeans that tight?
The brunette returned after a while with a slice of pizza and a beer for his friend. They kept a few around the building for nights like this, where everyone was in a great mood and Venjix was staying the hell out of everyone's business. There were limits on the alcohol intake the team could have, but so long as they kept it at one per, things were fine.
"You eating out here or are you gonna risk it today?" Ziggy offered, nodding to the slice he'd brought back.
Dillon gave him a dirty look, "Who said I was hungry?" when his response was met with a look his friend had that always gave him an eerie impression that sometimes Ziggy was way smarter than he seemed to be, the older man just sighed, "I'll risk it." the response was a bit less growly as he took the offered dinner and arranged it so he wouldn't mess the inside of his car up too much.
The younger man shook his head a bit, lightly running a hand down the skin of Dillon's arm, which was resting on the edge of the open window, the older man's leather jacket abandoned in the backseat sometime earlier, "I've got a lot to think about tonight." it was a cryptic comment, especially for Ziggy, but something in his features kept Dillon from pressing it. He just carefully turned his arm to catch the former's hand as it slid along his arm.
"Don't do that." it was a short response but not meant to sound angry as he watched their hands for a moment before releasing him and nudging the younger male away from his car. "Good luck with whatever you're thinking about."
Ziggy smiled but said nothing else, heading back to the couch to rejoin his other friends. Tonight he'd have to think about painful memories, things he'd repressed to cope with the fuzziness in his head and how sick he got when things reminded him too much of that fuzziness. He'd already made his decision, whether K would let him tell her yet or not, and whether or not he'd hate himself for it later, Ziggy was prepared to stick with his choice till the bitter end. No matter how painful it was.
Morning came too early and Ziggy sighed as he pulled himself up from where he'd been sleeping. They'd all crashed awkwardly sometime in the night, and most had eventually gotten back up and moved or been moved. Summer had fallen asleep on the armrest, and ended up leaning on Scott, who had been seated on the couch with one arm around her. They'd eventually woken up and wandered to a proper bed, though whose proper bed it was, he couldn't be sure. Gem and Gemma had fallen asleep on the coffee table with their colors still laying about – those had been gathered up and the green ranger vaguely remembered seeing Flynn carrying the two upstairs over his shoulders, a fond grin on the Scotsman's face. Ziggy himself had been curled up on the couch but when he woke up, was in bed again and tucked in. There was no sign of his roommate but it was obvious who'd put him to bed and that made the young man smile just the same.
Downstairs, he had to knock a few times before the door to the Ranger Room was unlocked. It seemed the main team weren't the only ones who had crashed where they were, he observed, spotting a groggy Tenaya – who had pushed the button to let him in – with Dr. K fast asleep on her lap. The young ranger grinned, walking over and lifting up his sister with both arms so her girlfriend could get up from the chair she'd been trapped in all night, albeit willingly.
"I'm becoming increasingly glad I have robotic legs," the former infiltrator joked, standing up and cracking her neck a little bit as she stretched. Ziggy put K back down in the chair again once she was up, but it seemed all the movement had woken the girl anyway. She blinked around, staring at Ziggy's mop of brown hair with confusion.
"How did you get in here?" the words were cut off with a bit of a yawn, K obviously way too content from a good sleep to be fully social.
Tenaya pat her lover's head at that, noticing the younger girl already looking around for her, "I let him in. We didn't go to bed properly last night and left the doors locked."
"Why'd you let him in?"
An exaggerated eyeroll to rival one of her brother's later and Tenaya had reminded her girlfriend that they had needed to get up anyway and Ziggy had a very important decision to give them. K had stared at her for a while before the color drained from the genius's face once more and she remembered just why she had had to curl up on Tenaya and how she'd ended up falling asleep like that. Crying herself to sleep was thankfully something K didn't do often and she didn't exactly like the idea of doing it.
"So have you made your decision Series Gre-Ziggy." both Tenaya and Ziggy had given her a look at that. Before it was okay to be so cold and formal with him, particularly when she might be putting him in a bad position and wanted to be detached but now? Now she wasn't allowed that luxury – he was her family, moreso than before, and all of them knew she'd have to put formality behind her in instances like this.
He nodded and squared his jaw, trying not to let the words bite in his throat too much, "Yes. I'll go through with it. I don't really want to but I will."
There was something about how he said it that made a little buzz start at the back of the doctor's mind. She usually had that buzz when he said certain things that usually floored the rest of the team either with their stupidity or with how seriously he meant them. For once, she didn't suppress that buzz and realized it was a knowledge that she hadn't realized she had about the ranger and his behaviors.
"You didn't even have to think it over did you? You knew from the moment we said what we were going to do what your answer was." she stared at him open mouthed for a moment after saying this, having just been hit in the face very hard with a realization about his character. He wasn't STUPID, he was EMOTIONAL. Ziggy wasn't just deciding crap like this because he didn't think through the options – he didn't have to think about the options because he knew what he was choosing already, regardless of what he thought. He cared about them and therefore would do whatever it took to help them, no matter how bad it was. Somehow, the genius wondered very much if being emotional wasn't worse than being stupid – at least then you'd have an excuse for bad decisions.
Ziggy leaned forward to smile at her brightly, a real smile not one of the fake ones he pulled to keep from breaking down, "Nice of you to finally notice, Doc."
The machine didn't take too many days to build, surprisingly. Dr. K had already had a prototype she'd been working on in the lab for a while, making no progress. The schematics from the Project were enough for her to correct the design and get it working. Before the testing, she gave Ziggy the option of telling the others what was going on. Summer already knew and was staying nearby in case anything bad happened, but the rest of the group was thankfully oblivious. When the procedure went on, K would have to watch the machine as it worked, making sure it didn't hit any blocks in Ziggy's mind with too much trouble. It was a complicated and bizarre explanation for how the machine worked, but essentially it all had to do with the memory discs actually just containing diagrams of where memories were removed, how much was taken and footage of the procedure for records, and K having to follow that to reverse engineer the process. However, what it meant was that the others would be able to see fast motion clips of a lot of his more painful memories as they were uncovered, if they were present for the proceedings.
In the end, he'd resolved to let Dr. K tell the others of their findings, unable to muster up the courage to say it all himself, and for once, no one blamed him. Scott took the information with a quiet acceptance and a good deal of restraint, Flynn just stared with a dropped jaw and wide eyes, and the twins seemed eager to bounce over and hug Ziggy, who just smile and let them. Only Dillon had taken things badly, clenching his fists and leaving the room in a huff to lean against a wall outside. Tenaya had noted with great interest the way the former youngest ranger followed Dillon's retreating back with his eyes and a soft expression before turning away to smile at Gemma, who was petting his hair nervously and Gem who was gripping his arm maybe a bit too hard.
It was finally decided that the whole team would try to be present and supportive for the procedure, but if anything came up, Ziggy was to stay with Dr. K and Tenaya while the rest of the team handled it. That was for the best, since they had no idea how his current side effects would work with the memory retrieval – whether they'd lesson or get worse – and whether stopping in the middle to go fight Venjix might permanently scar his brain worse than before. So with that matter settled and the date set, they merely had to wait, worry and hope for the best.
