.:23:.

Situational Awareness

The spark of electricity that shot through Bailey's fingers made her squeal in surprise. Just before bringing her burned thumb to her mouth saying, "Damn," under her breath.

Avalon gave her a look over the top of her tool box. "Don't curse."

"Coming from the girl who curses every other word? I'll be sure to keep that in mind, yeah?" Bailey replied sarcastically. She sighed heavily, running a hand through her hair as she leaned back, resting her hands on the side of the table in front of her, eyes roving over the mountain of metallic pieces and wires that sat in front of her.

Avalon closed the lid to her toolbox as quietly as possible. She glanced toward the door to the workroom they sat in, made sure that no one was coming before crossing the room to stand by her sister's side. "And I'll be sure not to ground you for that."

"Like you could."

"Ha." Avalon studied her little sister, tilting her head to the side. Watched the way Bailey's lips puckered in displeasure, as it always did when she was stumped by something. Avalon hadn't seen it too many times before, Bailey was always able to figure things out, quicker than some of the smartest people she knew, but also knew all the thoughts, the anxious thoughts, running through her sister's head. "Bay, we're going to figure this out."

"Not at this rate, we won't," Bailey replied. She pushed herself back away from the desk, dropping into a chair behind her. She dropped her hands into her lap, shaking her head. "I don't get it. The components that go into a morpher aren't that complex. In design." She tilted her head to the side. "And I've worked on enough morphers to know how to keep the power output continuing, even when it takes on more damage than it should. But, somehow, I can't seem to get this one to work."

"We've only been at it for a couple of days, Bay," Avalon reminded her. She shook her head. "Remember? We've been a bit busy with the Titanium Ranger. And with Carter being down for the time being, it's not like we've had the time to make any progress on it." She rolled her eyes. "Why else would we be here at 3am?"

Bailey's frown deepened. "You didn't have to come," she grumbled.

"With as much noise as you made while trying to keep quiet? I definitely had to." Avalon shook her head. "Besides, you know I was already awake."

Bailey nodded.

Of course, she knew Avalon would've already been awake. She hadn't slept fully through the night in years. Not since having had first arrived in California and making her acquaintance with Chase and the rest of the Vipers. Bailey wasn't sure if Avalon knew she knew, but Bailey had woken up many times throughout the night and poked her head out her bedroom door to see Avalon sitting by the front door of their apartment quietly. Sometimes she was reading, sometimes drawing, sometimes just staring into space. Nevertheless, she was there, waiting and ready for anything that may come for them. Whether it be the police, CPS, the Vipers or anyone from a rival gang, she was there to make sure nothing happened.

All the while, Bailey had laid in bed, curled up with her blankets pulled up to her shoulders, sometimes over her eyes, trying to block out the thoughts that scared her more than the dark itself. Tried to block out any of the sounds of the rough neighborhood they lived in, thinking someone was trying to break in. Blocked out the sounds of shouting form their neighbors that lived in the rooms nearby, the walls so thin that she could hear every word and determine where everyone was and, probably, deduce what their faces and gesticulations were.

"What is it that's not working?" Avalon asked.

Bailey gave her a wry smile, the side of her mouth turning up. "If I knew that, we wouldn't be here right now, would we?"

"Yeah, instead we'd be planning our dad's surprise birthday party."

"I panicked, okay?" Bailey rolled her eyes. Then she sat up straight, changing the subject back to what Avalon had asked her before. "Everything with the power output is correct," she explained slowly, thinking through her steps as she spoke out loud. "From the power source to what would make it that you could morph. I likened it off the morphers we've used before."

"Maybe that's the problem."

"What do you mean?"

"The morphers we had before was using alien technology, yeah?" Avalon replied. She tilted her head aside and brushed her hair back from her face. Her freckles disappeared into the creases in her cheek when she wrinkled her nose, thinking. She spun a screwdriver in her free hand, the movement oddly calming. "And while you and Billy became very prolific in that sort of thing, it's not the same as the usual technology we'd use."

Bailey giggled quietly, hearing her sister use the word 'prolific' when years before she would've just grunted in response. Or insulted everything they'd used. But she also wondered how she was able to say Billy's name out loud without a flash of anger in her eyes that she couldn't hide. Part of her knew her sister well enough to know she could keep whatever she needed inside, and all with a straight face, but it'd come out eventually. If being with Jason hasn't had her completely forget, Bailey thought. Then her mind shifted to what Avalon was saying.

"You do have a point," she said slowly. "This is something that the operatives here would've made." She looked at Avalon, watching her closely. Noticing the way her eyebrows twitched and her mouth tightened. But Bailey kept going. "Dad tried to make something that was like our ranger powers ages ago," she said slowly. "And that's what you walked in on and it affected you, long before you became a ranger with the others." She drummed her fingers against the table top. "And now they have the Titanium Morpher—"

"—That was stolen—" Avalon broke in.

Bailey spoke quietly next, not able to reach her sister's eyes. Knew the response she would get for even thinking it let alone saying it out loud. "Okay…so, dad and the people here, maybe Miss. Fairweather, have been making the morphers since the first one he tried to make. Perfected them. He made all of the morphers here and then tried to figure out who would be worthy enough to have them."

Avalon hummed but didn't say anything otherwise.

"So…maybe we should get his help?" She ventured out, seconds before quickly defending herself, noticing the roll of Avalon's eyes. "He could help us! If we're going to stand a chance against the Titanium ranger, we're going to need some help!"

"The last thing we'll need is his bloody help, and I don't need you screeching at me to try and convince me."

"I'm not shrieking!" Bailey's cheeks flushed and she lowered her voice. Not only to make it so that she wasn't, in fact, shrieking, but so that her voice didn't echo around the room they weren't supposed to be in. "I'm just saying that, so far, nothing's working." She took in a deep breath. "I guess, it's sort of like what happened with Tommy.

Avalon hummed once more.

But Bailey knew she got it.

They weren't there for it, but they'd heard a bit of the story about Tommy being the Evil Green Ranger. A foil to the rangers at the time that Rita Repulsa was growing desperate. Before he became a "good" Green Ranger, before he became the White Ranger and the leader of the team. Tommy didn't talk about it a lot, the other rangers tended to fall quiet when something about it was brought up, and Bailey didn't blame him.

The small amount of information she got on the green ranger was horrifying enough. He'd been a regular teen, just moved to Angel Grove, was just starting to make friends. And the next thing he knew, he wanted nothing more than to kill them. Even when he was sitting in class, he worked out the best ways to kill them without them seeing it coming. Even more horrifying, Tommy had admitted to her that he didn't care whether or not they were in class when he had the thoughts of killing them, had to work hard not to lean over and stab them in the neck, had to act like everything was okay despite the evil spell swirling through him as the seconds passed. Jason had admitted it was hard for them, too, having to pretend that someone who was working to murder them wasn't sitting int the back of the class, acting as if nothing was going on.

Then there were the times they continuously fought against each other. At first, the rangers held back, not wanting to hurt him. But when it came to their battles, Tommy would throw everything into his attacks against them. He'd tried crushing them with his zord, had even tried drowning them when caught them in an inescapable pod and threw them into the river. Tommy had told her all of that with a darkness that swept over him, proving he still thought about it and still wondered how he'd be able to come back from it.

He was a good ranger, a good leader, she reminded him. But it never changed the past, he always replied. Which was true. Nothing would change the past. Nothing would change the things they'd seen and experienced throughout their tenure as rangers.

And here she was, trying to recreate it. Bailey tapped the side of the opened morpher with her fingertip, studying the circuitry inside. She could've used Billy's brain at a time like that. Then again, she didn't know how much help he'd be if Avalon killed him first.

"If the Titanium Ranger keeps going, and these guys can't stop him…I don't know what's going to happen," Bailey continued. "Everyone else has lost their ranger powers, only you still morph as the Turbo ranger and who knows how long that's going to last."

"It should last for a while," Avalon said. "It was turned off of the Zeo Powers we had from the Zeo Crystal and Zordon said the Zeo Crystal would only steadily get stronger." Her eyebrows twitched upwards. "As far as I know, I'm the only one who still uses their morpher." She shook her head. "We never thought that being a ranger would end."

"It hasn't yet."

Avalon closed her eyes. She ran her hands over her face, shook her head. "We came out here to spend some time with Dana. To see if, maybe, there was anything we could do to help our relationship with dad, and next thing we know we're rounding up a bunch of civilians to be the next bloody team."

She yawned, closing her eyes and bringing a hand up to cover her mouth. Then sat up straight. "I think I know how to get that thing to work," she said. Bailey perked up almost immediately. Avalon's ideas were unorthodox and always had been, who else would be strong enough to think that she'd be able to protect her little sister form a gang and continue to get her to school despite Avalon's own life slowly falling apart. "But it'll have to do with the Turbo power, which means, I may be out of commission for a while."

"And with Carter…" Bailey trailed off. It was hard to see Carter missing training practices and debriefings, it was starting to become more and more obvious why he was the leader of the team. He held them all together. Dana focused more on her studies, Kelsey was spending more time doing adrenaline pumping stunts when she wasn't hanging with Ryan, Chad spent a lot of time at work, and Joel was forever chasing Miss. Fairweather. When Carter was around, they were sure to stick to routine. "His back is still healing, and the Titanium Ranger knows it. There haven't been many attacks since then, he's waiting for Carter to come back."

"And it doesn't help that the news reporters are making note of Carter's disappearance," Avalon agreed. "From there and from the firehouse." She shook her head, stood up. "'It's getting late, we better get some sleep before training."

Bailey looked at her watch, eyes widening behind her glasses. It was only a few more hours they'd have to wake up again so that they could get in an entire morning's worth of training before she went to school. Her eyes burned, suddenly realizing how long the day was going to be. At least we made some more progress on the morpher, Bailey thought, carefully picking up the pieces they'd put together and slid them into the canvas bag she'd been storing them in.

Avalon watched her quietly, Bailey could feel her eyes on her. She ignored it. Was used to it anyway. Avalon always watched her, watched over her, watched out for her. Would always be there for her, but couldn't keep going on in life watching out for her, wouldn't always be there.

"We better go before someone finds out we've been using the AquaBase's supplies," Bailey said.

"Right, they'll tattle on us and dad'll ground us for eternity," Avalon mumbled. Bailey winced. Avalon noticed. "I'm not going to tell you what to do about dad," Avalon said, sounding tired. She rubbed at her eyes. "I don't want to keep having this conversation with you. You can do whatever you want with him. I'm not going to paint him out to be a monster to you if you don't see it. Just don't expect me to jump for fucking joy one way or the other."

"I seem to remember you saying the same thing about Tommy and the others," Bailey pointed out. Avalon looked taken aback. "You didn't trust them at first. You wanted them far away from you. And now they're our family." She gestured behind her. "I want to help these guys, Av. I want to help, Dana. To help Dad…even if things don't work out for our family…I want to help."

Avalon shook her head. She reached out and placed her hand on her sister's shoulder, gently shaking her. "It's not up to you to save the world, kid," she pointed out.

"Maybe not," Bailey agreed.

There was a time where she wanted nothing but to help save the world. She was the one who was able to take on the powers of the ranger of chaos. The Ankylosaurus Power Coin was unable to be tamed by any of her friends, but she could do it. It made her feel, that, maybe she was meant for something other than to just be smart. She was scared, first throwing herself into the world of being a ranger, first from the safety of the Command Center, and the next being almost stomped on by Ivan Ooze.

But then there was a part of her that worried about the life she could have had, that she continuously missed out on as the days went by. That she wasn't a normal teenager. She had that, at one point, when she was dating Fred. But then he'd ended up sucked into the vortex of being a ranger. He helped her in the Command Center and was ready to drop everything about being a ranger for her. But…she wanted to be a normal teen. So when she started to get along with Rocky's little brother and sister, she understood what it was like. To go to sporting events at school, to be excited for dances, to hanging out and being normal, not 'the know-it-all'.

It was short-lived.

The second she really started to learn what it was like, she left Angel Grove for Mariner Bay and had gotten sucked back into the Power Ranger world once more. Shocked by every little thing that she came across as the days went by. Shocked that there were people who had their own lives; a fire fighter, a stunt pilot, an EMT, and they were willing to give up that normal life to be as much of a help to their city as they could be.

Being normal was overrated.

Life wasn't black and white, it was gray and a fantastic array of colors that could inspire those even in their darkest times.

And if there was one thing that Avalon had made sure to teach Bailey, in all the years that she'd protected her, it was that she wasn't one to give up when things got tough. Who else could continue to go to school and act as if things were normal when monsters were ravaging the city and danger came to her home on almost a daily basis?

"But I can try."

A/N: I missed writing Bailey, especially to show how truly smart she is, though naïve in other areas of life. She truly was affected by Av's being part of the Vipers than others originally would've thought. But to make her own morpher—or at least be in the process of it?

I can't wait to really have Av and Bay back in their fights as well as truly being part of the Lightspeed Rescue team…once they stop isolating themselves.

Thanks to Adela, ChibiDawn23, and Guest for reviewing.