Past Midnight

Z walked down the silent and empty hallways at SPD with the biggest grin on her face. She wanted to dance and yell to celebrate how happy she was feeling inside at the moment, but since it was past midnight the base was almost still from only a few people being up and about. She practically ran to her room, and turned on the lights quickly, jumping on her roommate's bed, with her roommate in it.

"Z!" Meghan shouted, half asleep. "Get the hell off of me!" Z laughed and moved to lean against the wall, still sitting on Meghan's bed, just not crushing the red ranger anymore. Meghan sat up and rubbed her eyes, the red streaked curls crushed around her half closed eyes.

"Sorry, but you're pretty much the only one I can tell right now." Z was practically bouncing on the bed, lighting Meghan's curiosity.

"Tell me what?" The red ranger asked, her curiosity piqued. Z smiled broadly for a minute before holding up her left hand. Sitting on her third finger was a small gold band with a single small diamond placed in the center of it. Meghan's mouth dropped open in surprised shock and she laughed.

"Congratulations! That's so great, Z!" She grabbed Z's hand to get a better look. "Wow." She released it and grinned, much more awake. Z glanced around the room.

"I kind of expected Sky to be in here." She threw a grin at Meghan who rolled her eyes.

"It was a long day." She grinned, leaning back on her pillow. "I didn't think you'd be back though."

"I thought we had early training tomorrow." Z groaned as she pulled herself off of Meghan's bed and over to her side of the room.

"Don't even mention that." Meghan flopped back and sighed. "I love the fighting, hate training for it though." It was quiet as Z went in their bathroom and changed, and came out to lie on her bed, looking at her ring. "How's it feel?" Meghan asked softly.

"It's weird. It feels heavy like it's weighing my down, but it belongs there." She grinned. "And now I have my Dad's friends that act like parents." The Wild Force Rangers had hung around NewTech City for a few days, getting to know Z and Isaiah, and little Aaron who was looking more and more like his father, after the he was born, and then they'd seen each other again at RangerCon. "What about you?" Z leaned over to look at Meghan.

"What do you mean, what about me?" Meghan raised her eyebrows in amusement.

"Well first, I like your new/old hair." Z grinned as Meghan laughed.

"It's my natural look." She laughed.

"I don't think bright red is a natural hair color."

"It is when you're half Karovian." Meghan replied with a funny look. Z's smile faultered.

"That's really your natural hair color?"

"Yup."

"Wow, guess it wasn't your punk days."

Meghan burst out laughing at Z's comment. "Ok, so I used to wear too much make-up, but I swear almost everything Alex tells you about me is a lie! But think about it, I had the temp brown dye over it, and take it off and it's still magically perfectly streaked? Have you ever seen my Uncle Andros' hair?"

"Alright then, but my original question." Z stopped her. "You and Sky have been together from what I understand a really long time, are you ever going to get married?" Meghan was silent in the darkness for a while longer than Z was comfortable. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…"

"No, it's ok, you didn't know." Meghan's voice was soft, and high up as if she was now sitting straight up in her bed. "You know how we told you three years ago with the whole Sarah, Kyle, and Dru thing that we'd gone to the park?"

"Yeah."

"We weren't just on a date, he asked me to marry him." Meghan's voice was almost a whisper now. "When I came back, things were really bad, but now we're ok, I don't know if he'll ask again."

"I didn't realize." Z whispered.

"Nah, it's ok." Meghan laughed lightly. "We're comfortable where we are. And might I suggest you employ my help for this wedding before you go to my sister or Miranda for anything."

"No kidding, although despite her going completely insane, the wedding was beautiful." Z replied, referring to Bridge and Miranda's wedding the week before. The wedding had been themed all in green, referencing their ranger colors when they met and her current one. "D'you think Matt and Lynn will ever stop dodging around each other?"

"I hope not, he's getting pathetic." Meghan's voice clearly told Z she was rolling her eyes about her twin brother. "I can understand where Lynn's coming from though." She murmured.

Z laughed, "Yeah, avoiding a Corbett is a good thing." Meghan laughed and rolled over, closing her eyes.

"You managed to do well with that." She mumbled, her mouth covered by the pillow.

"Alex is a great guy."

"Si."

"Hey leave the Spanish to the one who speaks it fluently."

"Sea lo que sea, Senorita."

"Take Spanish in high school?" Z grinned at Meghan's 'whatever'.

"Nos solía pasar los veranos con nuestros abuelos en Mexico."

"Wow, you can speak Spanish." Z was in awe. "You learned Spanish from spending summers with your grandparents in Mexico… are they actually Mexican?"

"Yup, mi abuela." Came the muffled response.

"I can't believe pale blonde Syd is part Mexican." Z said softly, feeling her ring through the dark. "Meghan?" She asked after a while. But there was no reply other than the soft snores coming from the bed next to her. Z laughed to herself before falling into a deep sleep.

Next Morning

Most of the rangers sat around the recreation room in the morning before having to start patrol. Sky sat in the corner of one of the sofas with the newspaper covering his face while Syd sat with Aaron and Isaiah at the smaller couch. The others were scattered around the room randomly, mostly paired off, Tianna was there with her slowly expanding stomach, spending a little time with Jordan. Suddenly Z and Meghan came through the door wearing street clothes, both wearing jeans, sneakers and t-shirts. But that wasn't the surprising thing; the most interesting thing was that their voices had carried down the hallway, speaking in a different language.

"No estoy bromeando! Matt fue un total wimp cuando éramos niños." Meghan said and they both laughed as the others looked up.

"Hey, cállate." Matt said to his twin as they came in. "No sé qué le dijo usted, pero no es cierto."

"Sí derecho." Syd put in, grinning at her baby and kissing his forehead.

"Whoa, whoa, what's going on?" Lynn put out her hands and looked from sibling to sibling. "Is that Spanish?"

"Yes." Z answered, staying in the doorway as Meghan went over to Sky, who put down the newspaper. "Apparently the Corbett's speak it too." She looked at her brother who nodded.

"I thought you knew." He shrugged, looking back to the magazine in front of him. Syd stood up and picked up Aaron's bag of baby stuff. She handed him to Tianna who kissed her boyfriend good bye and carried the baby out of the room. Tianna's new job at SPD was working in the Day Care center downstairs which Isaiah and Syd had started to use now that Syd was back as a ranger. But now that Tianna and Jordan were expecting, Syd wasn't sure she wanted to leave her baby with a stranger.

"Hey, Z and I are going into town now." Meghan leaned over and kissed Sky but when she went to leave he grabbed her hand.

"You are?"

"I told you yesterday." She rolled her eyes at him, but he grinned. "And you knew that."

"And I told you that we have a flying lesson tonight." He grinned back. She grinned before leaning in to kiss him again before pulling her hand from his and leaving out the door, dragging Z with her.

Alex's Studio, NewTech City

"Alright Meg, you remember how this all works?" Alex asked, adjusting the black polo he was wearing.

"Heck yeah." Meghan smiled brightly and took the sheet music into the sound booth. Z frowned.

"I really don't know, what's she doing?"

"Well, she's going to record the demo for me, and then I'll send the demo tape to professional singers, who'll listen to it and then decide to record it or not." Alex explained, snaking his arm around her waist and kissing her ear. Z giggled and turned to the glass where Meghan was grinning at them.

"By the way, congrats on the engagement you two." She said through the intercom.

"Thanks." Alex beamed at Z before starting the music. Meghan started singing along with the slow music to the new song, and Z sat back and listened to the lyrics about love. Most songs were about love anyway, heartbreak, true love, break-ups, and such, but this one was one of the sappy ones that make you cry when there's a two carat diamond on your left hand. When she finished Meghan wrinkled her nose and buzzed into Alex.

"Hey, I need to do that again."

"You're the only demo singer I know that can do this in two takes, it's ok." He laughed and flipped a switch up by the top of the sound boards. She barely heard Meghan start singing, but she could only stare at the purple crystal orb hanging from a nail on the wall. "Hey." Alex's voice jolted her out of her racing thoughts. Z looked up at him and realized Meghan was in the room staring at her too.

"Es uno de los cristales!" She blurted out, pointing. Meghan looked at it and pulled it off the nail.

"Where'd you get this?" She asked, looked at Alex with surprise.

"It was my grandmother's." He frowned and took it from his friend. "She gave it to me for good luck." Meghan and Z exchanged a grimace that he noticed. "What?"

"Well…" Z started.

"It could possibly be a mythical crystal that is used to free a sort of power that could possibly destroy the universe as we know it." Both Alex and Z stared at Meghan in surprise when she spouted the truth right off. "What? He knows to keep his mouth shut. Look Alex, we need to take this back to SPD, it'll be safe, but we need to return it to it's rightful owner."

"But it's been in my family for ages." Alex protested, crossing his arms. Z took his head in her two hands.

"Look, if the wrong people get their hands on this you'll never see it or the world as we know it again." She murmured. "We'll take care of it, don't you trust me?" Alex sighed and released his arms to pull her into an embrace.

"I do trust you, it's just…" His eyes went to the orb in Meghan's hand. "It means a lot to me." But no one in the room had any time to respond as a weird blue light filled the area and engulfed all three of them.

Delta Base

Lynn walked down the hallway, her head ringing in pain. She hadn't been able to even get a glimpse of any other person's emotions all morning with the pain echoing through her mind. Even just walking down the hallway of SPD was painful; her own footsteps were adding to the echoing. But she didn't make it all the way down the hall because a door opened behind her and a pair of hands pulled her into it. Her scream was stifled by a strong hand and the whisper in her ear.

"Hey." She twisted out of his grasp and put her hand on her chest.

"You scared me to death!" She glared at him, but let him pull her into his arms and rested her head against his chest. "What's this all about?"

"I wanted to see you." He murmured against her hair.

"We're going to get caught." She pulled back to face him, moving her head to get her bangs out of her eyes, but staying in his embrace.

"I really don't care." He whispered softly, resting his lips on hers gently. Lynn put up with his soft kissing for a while, but pushed against him and deepened it impatiently. He broke their kiss and grinned at her with his familiar brown eyes. "Wow, what was that?" He kissed her forehead and she wrapped him in an embrace.

"We're going to have to tell them." He groaned and pulled away from her, and she put her hands on the hips of her pink highlighted uniform. "You know I'm right."

"Yeah I know." He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned on the table. Lynn just noticed they were in the conference room where they usually did their paperwork. "It's just going to be kind of hard."

"Of course it's going to be hard." She moved up to him and leaned against his legs. "But we still have to do it." Alarms went off overhead preventing his reply as they went out the door and to the command center, mixing in with the others who were at the base today.

"Rangers, Meghan and Z's signals have vanished off of the computer." Cruger informed. Lynn saw Sky roll his eyes out of the corner of her eye and grinned. Sky had calmed down considerably since she'd first met him; the metaphorical stick had been dislodged by the spunky female red.

"Any idea where they are?" Matt asked curiously.

"Not at the present time, but there was an energy spike similar to the one's emitted when C-squad was transported which leads us to believe there's a crystal involved." Kat replied, bringing up the schematics on the hologram between her and the rangers. "The Strixes and the Marlores have both been sighted in town, but with no disturbance until the energy spike." She continued.

"Jordan, Sydney, Matt and Miranda head into town and search the area of the spike, Lynn and Bridge do some research in the lab, Sky and Isaiah patrol around the outskirts of town."