Disclaimer: no one mentioned belongs to me, I guarantee it.
I've never done one of these before; bear with me.
Kira jolted upright in bed. Her head was hazy, and she wasn't sure what had roused her, until a blinking yellow light invaded her conscious, illuminating a circle on her ceiling. Yellow light...morpher. Morpher, trouble. Trouble.
She fumbled for her bedside table --the morpher was too hefty to comfortably wear at night-- and picked it up. "'S Kira. Yeah?" she mumbled.
"Kira, we have a situation. I need you downtown right away," Dr. O. said.
"But it's...nighttime..." she said, and yawned, willing her brain to fully wake up.
"Yes, I know, but it's get a few extra hours sleep, or let Reefside be destroyed by a crazy dino dude." There was a pause. "Conner's phrasing, not mine."
Kira wished she was more awake, to better appreciate that jab at her unconventional team leader. But alas, her brain was still covered in a sleepy fog. "Okay," she said. "I guess I'm on my way, then."
"Great."
Kira threw off the covers...well, not so much 'threw' as 'pushed', and got out of bed. She strapped her morpher on. "Dino Thunder, power up!"
She arrived on the scene about the same time as Ethan and Conner. Dr. O. was locked in a two-on-one battled with Zeltrax and another of Mesogog's hideous monsters.
"Hey, ugly!" Conner yelled. "Don't you have any respect for your elders? Why don't you give us a go?"
"Gladly," the monster replied, abandoning his siege on Dr. O. and going after the teenaged Rangers. Kira heard Dr. O. breathe the slightest sigh of relief as he took on Zeltrax uninterrupted.
Kira was in an unusual state. For all intents and purposes, she was definitely awake, but her head was still encased in a soupy fog that even being up and moving in the chilly night air wasn't able to lift. Her eyes were prickling with that just-woke-up sensation, although it had been long enough that they should no longer be doing so. Fortunately, her Ranger instincts were taking over, leaving her in a decent physical condition to join the battle, though she was a far cry from her best performance.
They rendered the monster a pile of ash, but predictably, it was not yet defeated, and they had to go to the Zords. When finally they triumphed and powered down, Kira promptly collapsed on the pavement, loosely aware of the alarmed cries of her teammates.
Kira awoke in an unfamiliar setting, to say the least. She had vague recollections of having passed out after a battle against another ugly monster. But from the looks of things, she was now in a bedroom. And not her own.
Pressing the heel of her hand against her temple in an attempt to cease her throbbing headache, Kira pulled herself to a sitting position. A red comforter had been carefully arranged over her. She absently poked it, feeling how thick and soft it was. Red, her brain recognized, immediately making the connection to, "Conner..?"
There was no answer, perhaps because her not-quite-a-question hadn't been more than a whisper. She blinked, taking in more of her surroundings. Definitely a bedroom, she was on a full-sized bed, black sheets. The walls were an off-white color, with a shelf in one corner displaying an array of glittering trophies. There was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar hanging next to a red soccer jersey pinned to the wall, with the word 'McKnight' stamped across the back in white letters.
She was in Conner's room. Groggily, she swung her legs off the edge of the bed, and stumbled to a standing position. She shook her head to clear it, and while it did nothing for her headache, she was feeling considerably more lucid now. She put her hand on the doorknob and was about to turn it when it turned for her. She jumped back to avoid getting hit by the swing as it opened, and Kira stared into Conner's face.
He was surprised, then quickly broke into a grin. "You're awake. How are you feeling?"
"A little tired, a lot more confused. What happened?"
"Sit down, would you?" Conner said, shutting the door behind him and gently pushing her back onto the mattress. He handed her a glass of water and an ibuprofen tablet. "Here, this should help your headache some."
"How did you know I have a headache?"
"There's no reason why you wouldn't have a headache," he said.
She flashed him a brief smile and swallowed down the pill. "Thanks."
"No problem."
"Now again...what happened?"
"How much do you remember?"
"I think there was a battle of some kind...I'm kind of fuzzy on that."
"Oh, yeah, that." Conner ran a hand through his hair, and she watched it ripple over his knuckles. He straddled a nearby chair. "Well, Mesogog figured to catch us off guard, so we came in and fought this really ugly thing, looked kind of like a polar bear mated with a goldfish and threw up on itself...but yeah, we fought it, we won, then we powered down and you passed out. So Dr. O. had me take you back here, so I could keep an eye on you."
"Why couldn't he keep an eye on me?"
"He's heavy into researching why the crazy dino dude decided to strike in the middle of the night."
"How long have I been out?"
"It's about noon now. We called into the school and plead sick for you and me. Ethan's getting our assignments," Conner added, rolling his eyes with obvious distaste at still having to do his homework.
"Where are your parents?" she asked. Her headache was beginning to feel a bit better.
"Work and stuff. I don't take too many sick days, so they were pretty lenient. Obviously, they didn't know you were here."
"Thanks for taking me in, I guess."
"Well, it's not like your mom was home to take care of you," he said, and she was surprised that he remembered that she'd told him her mom was out of town on a business trip. "Someone had to."
"Well, it was...sweet." A word that had probably never come out of her mouth before, and also one that she never expected to attach to Conner, so it was a double-whammy of surprise. Conner's expression of disbelief no doubt mirrored her own. "Thanks," she added awkwardly. Still he said nothing, just wearing a tiny half-smile, and she chose to look around his room. "So this is the Temple of Conner, is it?"
"Oh, you don't want to see any of this," he tried to dissuade her, shifting his chair across the carpet, attempting to block her view.
Kira smirked. "What are you trying to hide?"
"Nothing!" he insisted. "I have nothing to hide."
"Oh, I'm sure you've got tons of secrets," she said.
"No secrets," he said. "Just boring, average stuff."
"Oh, come on, you aren't average or boring," she assured him, and touched his shoulder. Quickly she drew back and covered with, "Hey, listen, I'm still a bit tired, I'm going to catch a few more Z's, if that's all right."
"That's fine," he said. "I was just gonna go watch TV or something." With a smile, he stood up, and let himself out. Kira slid back under the covers and buried her face in the pillow. She then realized that she was inhaling his scent, his delicious Conner scent, and she sat up so quickly that she gave herself another bout of dizziness. Conner's scent? She wasn't...she couldn't be...it just wasn't possible...
"I am not attracted to Conner McKnight," she told herself firmly, and satisfied with this statement, she lay back down, squeezed her eyes shut, and willed herself asleep.