deserving

by starhawk

The first time Dr. K woke up, she stepped through the door while Ziggy and Dillon were playing cards in the control room. It was technically Ziggy's turn to "keep watch," but Dillon was keeping him company. Or preventing him from poking at unlabeled buttons out of sheer boredom. Probably both.

The door didn't get Ziggy's attention, but Dillon glanced at his watch and remarked, "That wasn't even three hours." Without looking up, he used his other hand to point over Ziggy's shoulder as he added, "Back to bed."

The argument that followed was truly spectacular. It involved a coldness that Dr. K usually reserved for actual incompetence and more swearing than they'd heard from Dillon in weeks. Ziggy came very close to leaving, except who knew what would happen without a witness?

The most startling thing about the confrontation was that, in the end, Dillon appeared to win. Dr. K disappeared again and Ziggy's hour was up before anyone heard anything else from her. Dillon stayed, but he lost two games of Gin Rummy in a row before Ziggy took pity on him and switched to Go Fish.

The second time Dr. K woke up, Flynn came out to the kitchen to get her something to eat. He couldn't promise that he hadn't left anything work-related open in the control room, but he'd changed the height of the chair so he could sit comfortably in it. He claimed that alone should be enough to distract their fearless mentor with thoughts of retribution.

The real problem came when Dillon went out for a walk and realized that just because Dr. K wasn't in the control room, that didn't mean she was sleeping. Maybe they should have watched the other door after all. Especially if she was going to sit there next to it, head on her knees, a motionless target for anyone who wandered by.

He tried to get her attention before she snapped at him just for seeing her. "Dr. K?"

"Please go away." Her voice was muffled but perfectly audible.

He folded his arms, leaning up against the wall where he was and casting a wary eye over their surroundings. "Call me crazy," he said, "but I have a problem leaving the head of Project Ranger alone in an alley for any passing nutjob to pick on."

She didn't answer, and he stood there for a long time.

Eventually she lifted her head, leaving her arms crossed over her knees, and told the space in front of her, "I was sorry about the carrier malfunction, you know."

No, he hadn't known, but he wasn't sure it mattered. He shrugged. "Things happen."

"Yes," she said, staring at something he couldn't see. "The Venjix attack bot was more important."

That made him frown. "Than what?" he asked. "The carrier? Or the people the carrier could have killed?"

"Anything," she said.

That was disturbingly obsessive. "Why?"

"Venjix is the enemy," she informed him, like he didn't know. "It went wrong; it's out of control."

"You can't control everything," he said irritably. He didn't know how she got to him, every time. "Hell, you can't control Scott. Doesn't make him the enemy. Things go wrong; it's not the end of the world."

Her tone was dark. "Venjix was."

"The world isn't over," he growled. "So it's different now. Things change."

"You don't even remember," she said. "You don't know."

"I know Venjix isn't the enemy because it's out of control," Dillon snapped. "It's the enemy because it doesn't care. We gotta care, or we're no different."

She looked at him for the first time, and he was startled to see the look of hurt that flashed across her face. "I care."

"About what?" he demanded.

She got to her feet, turned, and let herself back into the garage without another word. Without even a second look. He stared down at the pavement that had been between them, and it occurred to him to wonder: how much had she given up to ensure that Corinth lived?

Why was she so alone that she could live on a base without visitors or vacations, without the people she lived with even knowing she was there? Where were the people she'd worked with before? Why the hell did someone who went to the trouble of handpicking the city's defense communicate with them through a faceless screen?

What did "K" stand for, anyway? Did any of them even know?

Whatever. Like it mattered to him.

He went back inside to tell Summer she could take off. She looked up from her book with a smile, and he hung on the door as he leaned into the control room. "She's not sleeping," he said briefly. "No reason to wait around."

She raised her eyebrows. "How do you know?"

"Just saw her outside."

"I thought she didn't go outside," Summer said, putting her book down. "Did you tell her we want her to rest?"

"Yeah," he said dryly. "I think she got the message."

Summer frowned. "But she's not doing it."

"Not anymore," he agreed. "You know what they say... you can lead a scientist to reason, but you can't make them give up their shiny toys."

Her face crinkled in amusement. "Is that what they say?"

"It's what I say," he told her. "Now."

"How did she seem?" Summer asked. "Did she look okay?"

He gave her an incredulous look. "What am I, her keeper? A guy makes one joke and suddenly you're marrying us off. What's wrong with you people?"

"Okay, first off," she said. "You were the last one to see her. Kind of logical to ask you how she is. Second, a joke? What did you say?"

"I said this whole team has mommy issues," Dillon grumbled. "What does it matter?"

"It matters because Dr. K needs a keeper," Summer said. "And if you're interested..." She trailed off, shrugging. "She likes you as much as any of us."

"She doesn't need anything," he said. "Least of all other people. And I'm not interested, so it'd be great if you could stop acting like I've fallen for someone I could wipe the floor with."

"Let's be fair," Summer said, clearly more amused than chastened. "You could wipe the floor with all of us."

"Yeah, and I'm not falling into bed with you either," he retorted. "I took a morpher. It's permanent, so apparently you're stuck with me. Don't make it worse."

"Oh, grow up, Dillon. You may be moody with a flair for the dramatic, but you're not the worst teammate we could have had. And you're pretty much the best Ranger Dr. K could have asked for. Don't think she doesn't know that."

"I couldn't care less what she thinks," he said.

"Well, we care," Summer snapped. "Hard as it may be for you to understand, Dr. K has been there for us since the defense shield went up. We happen to like her. So I hope you're lying to me right now, because if you're not? Screw you. You don't deserve her."

"No one deserves her!" he exclaimed. "She's a fucking lunatic who'd destroy this city for the chance to defeat Venjix!"

He heard the door start to move several long hundredths of a second before it actually slid open, and why would he assume those walls were soundproofed? Nothing else on the base was. They had to be able to hear the alarms from anywhere.

Dr. K didn't look like she'd been listening to them argue. She looked like she always did: hair straight, lab coat unwrinkled... no trace of the woman who had pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her head in her arms. Or the sleeping girl they had been tiptoeing around for hours.

"Kindly get out," she said, in a tone that said "kindly" was an opener, not an adjective. "Rangers are not permitted in the control room."

Summer didn't protest. It was a sign of how badly they'd screwed up that she didn't even hesitate. Dillon was forced to get out of her way, and Dr. K could have slammed the door shut behind them. There wasn't anything they could say and they all knew it. Closing the door might have offered some kind of symbolic satisfaction, though.

She didn't do it. He didn't know if that made it better or worse.