Author's Note:  Sorry I took a while.  Life can be time-consuming.  Also, could anyone do me a favor and beta my stuff?  I need someone to really dice it apart and give me some feedback.  I would be grateful to you unto eternity.  Stars bless you all!      -StarWitch

Aftermaths

            Alex repressed a shudder as the steely walls of the Central Chamber resolved around her.  She was back in her normal clothes, without even a tear to show for the fight.  A light touch on her bruised shoulder made her whirl.

            "Hey!" Hannah yelped as Alex jerked her arm into an odd angle.  "I was only trying to help…"  Her blue eyes squinted.  "And that really hurts, Alex."

            Alex sighed, the adrenaline still in her system.  "Sorry," she told the other girl.  "I… I just don't like being touched."

            "Understatement of the year," a male voice growled.  By the time Alex looked up, all three boys were looking away.  The girl shook her head, allowing a soft growl.

            That got a response.  "Could you be any more bitchy?" Sean asked, running a hand through his mussed blond-brown hair.  "Seriously, growling is not going to get you anywhere."  Alex ignored him.  The five Rangers stood there uncomfortably.

            Marcos strode back over to the consoles, taking his seat.  "I'll send a message to Elle, let her know the battle is over," he told the room.  "Alex, I need your help to set up your codes here.  The rest of you, go."

            Sean nodded briskly.  "Great.  Alex," he said, "stay and do what Marcos wants."  He disappeared in a stream of red lights.

            Hannah smiled shyly and gave a tiny wave.  "Um, it was nice meeting you," she said softly.  "Maybe we could go shopping sometime, although tonight I have to baby-sit, so another time?"

            "Sure, some time," Alex said, staring at this strange cheerleader.  "When you're not baby-sitting.  Um…."  The Pink Ranger still stood there, as if waiting for a response.  "Don't let the kids run you over, or something?"

            Hannah gave a sweet smile.  "Thanks, Alex!  Bye!"  Her glowing pink teleport lights disappeared, Alex still staring.

            Mick shook his head.  "Alex, she's a nice person, not a brain-eating alien," he said into the quiet of the room.  "You could be nice, since she's trying."

            "But, shopping?  Mick, do I look like I shop?"

            "You're wearing clothes, aren't you?" he snapped.  "And I'm late for curfew at the Ridge.  Later."  Alex watched with worried eyes as Mick faded into a collection of green sparks, heading toward the Shady Ridge Home for Children.  His home, as much as he hated it.

            "You've known him for a long time?" a clipped Hispanic voice said.  "Guy's got some serious issues."

            "Yeah," Alex sighed, "I know.  Who doesn't?"

            "Well," Marcos said, dismissively, clearly ending the talk.  "You go lie on that bed there.  I have to take some scans."

            "You mean the metal table pretending to be a bed?"

            "Get on it."

            "Sure."  Alex raised her hands in surrender.  "No need to get touchy, Braincase."

            "Screw you."  Silence reigned as a delicate light rippled over Alex's body, Marcos tapping away at the panels.

            "Alex?"

            "Yeah?"

            Marcos turned around.  "Lift up your shirt a moment."

            Alex jerked upright, her hand tugging self-consciously at her shirt hem.  "Like hell am I gonna-"

            "I am not interested in your breasts," Marcos said coolly, making Alex blush helplessly.  "The computer is picking up a lot of bruising around your shoulders and back.  Also more on your head than our fight would produce.  I need to know if the reading is accurate."

            Alex crossed her arms over her chest.  "It is."  She glared at the shorter boy, daring him to comment.  Marcos studied her a moment, then turned back toward his panels and continued tapping at the buttons.  Alex sat tensely on the medical bed, watching.

            Marcos gave a soft, distinct sigh.  "You got one impressive beating recently," the Hispanic boy said.  He turned to face the girl.  "Should you need relief, get one of these," he said as he grabbed a small handheld device, "flip this switch, and run it over any hurt spots."  He tossed her the machine, then returned to his chair.

            Alex pushed up one sleeve and ran the device over a green-brown bruise.  A sharp tingle shivered up her arm, but as she watched, the bruise shrank and disappeared.  She allowed herself a grin and dealt with the rest of her aches.  About to teleport back to the park, she stopped.  "Um, Marcos," she asked, suddenly shy, "you're not going to mention this?"

            The Blue Ranger didn't even turn around.  "None of my business."

            Alex nodded, still unsure what to make of this weird boy.  "Um, thanks.  Bye, Marcos."

            "Bye."

            One teleport later, she found herself on Kazi Cliff, back at the tree where she had found the morpher.  Slumping against the roots, she shivered as the cold sea breeze and the loss of energy from the fight reached her.  The laughing red eyes of Fenrir still haunted her in the red of the sunset, and yet…

            He bleeds purple, like some sort of monster, Alex told herself.  He obviously kills, and he pegged you, and you know it.  And if it comes to me or him…

            Human or not, it's definitely him finding out if he likes brimstone.

~*~*~

            Marcos sighed in relief as the familiar zip of teleportation took Alex out of Central Chamber.  No, he wasn't about to mention to anyone that Alex was clearly abused.  Any more than he would mention Mick's paranoid and vaguely kleptomaniac tendencies, Sean's insecurity about everything that caused him to act bigger and stupider than he would be otherwise, Elle's determination to be queen of the planet, or the fact that Hannah cried on a nightly basis into a pink princess pillow about how horrible the world was and how lost she felt.  It wasn't his matters.  It wouldn't change a thing, even if he did tell.

            "Now, as for the more important matters," Marcos said aloud.  The Central Chamber could be slightly eerie when only the machines made noise, causing echoes down the metallic halls.  Since he began Rangering, he had taken to talking to fill up the extra space.  It was just his form of insanity, if anyone cared.  It seemed less ridiculous now.  His project for the Science Fair this year required voice recognition, and the more he talked, the better it recognized him.  "So, A.Z.," Marcos asked his newest program, "what are we learning today?"  A quick check reassured him the search program was working beautifully.  Now he just would have to program in some basic knowledge.  Long and time-consuming work as it was, Marcos would have it no other way.

            Being a Ranger had let him gain access to an incredible supercomputer twenty-four-seven.  He needed nothing more.

~*~*~

            Mick whacked his head against the barred window again, wishing the stupid bars would give.  It wasn't like he would try to escape tonight, what with his arm still sporting a nice red puckered line from Fenrir's knife. At least the knife wasn't poisoned this time…

            This entire set-up was wearing on him the longer he stayed.  Maybe he'd grown too used to living with a gang.  No curfews, no rules, and no questions easily offset having no privacy and a general fear of bringing Alex near a pile of guys who believed in rape.  It wasn't like he'd been skipping school either; once he graduated he would be off the street for good.  Even he knew that was the thing to do.  But Alex had insisted he get off the street before then.

            He was bleeding from the chest heavily, more sluggishly from the arm and back of his neck.  His shirt, balled up against the gash on his chest, was leaking again, leaving red tracks down his ribs and stomach.  The peeling house, gray-green, with a skinny blonde standing in front of it, arguing with a dark-haired, pimply boy just into a growth spurt.  Alex yelling at the boy to open the door to her house, then shutting the door in the boy's face as she rushed Mick to the girls' room.  Settled on her bed, with Alex straddling Selena's, bandaging his chest while Alex dug through the closet for new clothes.  The shirt, emerald green so bright against his usual black jeans, smelling of laundry detergent and a little dust.  It had been one of Alex's sleep shirts, before it became too short for her.  Her wide violet eyes staring at him, so sad.  "Mick, you're going to get killed out there."  He shook his head.  "Don't worry, Allie."  "I'm not Allie, I'm Alex!"  The girl screamed.  "Get off the streets or leave me alone!  I'm not going to cry for another person but me!"  A shivering ball of anger and tears on Selena's bed.  Mick's own tears as he and Alex clung to each other, telling every grief they'd known.  And his promise.  He'd stay off the streets for her, and she wouldn't have to cry again. "Deal."

            Swiping a wrist over his wet eyes, Mick shook his head like a dog spraying water.  Sure he'd made that promise, and he'd keep it, but did it have to be so damn hard!

~*~*~

            Elle found Sean still on the couch in her living room, drooling on a picture of William the Conqueror in his history book.  Giving a slight smile, she switched the book for a pillow and draped herself across the armchair, kicking her legs over one cushy arm.  Sean looked so sweet asleep, and she knew he wasn't sleeping much.  The "fearless leader" thing took more from him than he'd admit.  Elle had offered to take over, but he refused.  It wasn't her place to take, anyway.  Even if Sean was a sucky leader, he really was a sweet guy and the closest she'd ever come to loving.  She wouldn't take his precious leader position.

            Alex, on the other hand, might be a problem.  The team had already been set up:  Marcos the smart one, Hannah the sweet one who kept them together, Mick strangely useful with his knowledge of mythical creatures (many of which they'd found as monsters from Darklord), Sean the official leader, and she, Elle, as the second-in-command, leading from behind.  Sure, they fought, who didn't?  But here was this Alex, bossy, self-assured to the extreme, and a thorn in everyone's side.  Especially Sean's.  And no one messed with Sean.

            Elle sighed and kicked off her shoes.  Alex did fight well, she gave the girl that.  Fights with darklings usually took much longer and left the Rangers more damaged.  But still, couldn't she be more polite?  She comes in and starts yelling.  And Hannah hadn't even done anything to her, and here Alex was being rude.  Did she have something against cheerleaders?

            Sean let loose a loud, raspy snore.  Elle stuffed her giggles and wished her parents weren't so strict.  Otherwise she'd curl up against his big, warm body on the couch…  Elle grabbed a blue blanket and burrowed under it, laughing to herself as she listened to Sean snore and thought of interesting things to do to Alex during training.