Disclaimer: no one mentioned belongs to me, I guarantee it.
In Dr. O.'s basement, Kira was beginning to feel more like herself. She sat down and patiently explained everything that had happened to her within the past twenty four hours, and her voice only caught once in the description of her dream, not betraying the true horror that she had felt upon witnessing Conner's death. "Well?" she said when she finished. "What's wrong with me?"
"I have no idea," Dr. O. said, frowning. "Back when I first started, whenever someone was acting unusually, it was usually because Rita or whoever had cast a spell of some kind. But Mesogog doesn't deal with spells. So..."
"So it's me, then. I'm the one that's screwed up," Kira said glumly.
"You're not screwed up, Kira," Conner said in a soothing tone, putting his arm around her shoulders again. She leaned into him, wondering why on earth she required strength from Conner, of all people. Ethan and Dr. O. were the brainiacs, Conner was just some dumb jock that served no useful purpose. She didn't hate him, and she was working to the point where she could respect him, but she in no way liked him like that.
But his embrace was strong, warm, and it made her feel better. She appreciated the care he was taking with her, when she felt so fragile and uncertain.
"I'm screwed up," she repeated. "I'm...broken somehow. I was just a toy, two little kids were fighting over me. Duty and real life, and they both wanted to play with me, and they pulled, and they pulled, and," she slapped her hands together with a sound that made the three male Rangers jump, "whammo, something snapped, and now I'm broken. It's too much. Maybe I should quit."
"If you want to..." Dr. O. said quietly. Conner and Ethan stared at her with concern, the same expression that she and Ethan had bestowed on Conner when he'd wanted to quit. But this was different.
"I think..." Kira chewed on her lip, trying to think of how to phrase it. "My dream...it might have been...a prophecy." She looked up at Dr. O. and met his eyes directly, the only one she dared to look at. She could still feel Conner's arm around her, and its weight both reassured her, and with her newfound realization, terrified her. "I think that there's going to be a battle, and something's going to go wrong, and I'm going to kill Conner."
"You didn't kill me," Conner said. "Elsa did."
She shrugged off his arm and stood up, pacing frantically. "With my gun, Conner, it was my fault somehow. I got you killed in the dream, which means in the future I'm going to get you killed, and I have to quit the team because I can't let that happen."
"Kira!" Conner yelled, stepping in front of her. He gripped her arms in his hands and forced her to look up at him. "You didn't kill me. Elsa did. You dropping your gun doesn't count as killing me. It was an accident, and furthermore, it never happened. You hear me? It never happened. It's just a dream."
"But it will happen."
"You didn't just wake up one morning as a prophet, Kira!"
"How do you know?" she said, slapping his hands away. "Anything can happen, Conner. A couple of months ago, if someone had told you that you were a Power Ranger, what would you have done? Yeah, you would've laughed in their face. But here you are, you're a Power Ranger! Crazy, huh?"
"Whoa, hey, everybody calm down," Dr. O. said. "Take a seat, take a few deep breaths, relax."
"Dr. O., do you think I'm crazy? Am I crazy?"
"No. Weirder things have happened in my life, that I think who knows, maybe you are a prophet."
"It makes sense, don't you think? How I'm tired all of a sudden, how I passed out…the vision was so real that it took a lot out of me, that it needed extra energy from me to manifest itself."
"You sound like you've been watching one too many episodes of Buffy," Ethan said.
"Says the guy who got sucked into a video game," Conner retorted. He fixed Kira with those soulful brown eyes again. "It sounds crazy, but I believe you, Kira." He reached out to pat her arm, a gesture of reassurance, but she drew away.
"Don't touch me."
"Why? You haven't killed me yet," he said with a grin.
"Don't even joke about that, Conner, you freaking died."
"That's if your prophecy comes true. But now that we know it's a prophecy--"
"Or think we know," Ethan interjected from the other side of the room.
"--we can try and prevent it. Like, you can just not carry a blaster or whatever when we go fight." He glanced to Dr. O. "We can do that, right? Changes to the morpher?"
Dr. O. shrugged. "Sure. It's dangerous, though, going in there without a weapon."
"She'll still have a weapon," Conner said, "she'll have the Ptera Grips."
"It's a risk I'm willing to take, if it means saving Conner's life," Kira said firmly.
"Okay then. Give me your morpher, and I'll make some quick modifications." Kira removed it and handed it over. "I'm going to go upstairs and grab something out of your fridge, if that's okay."
"Sure, go ahead," Dr. O. said distractedly, disappearing into one of the darker corners of the lab to tinker with her morpher. "Conner, can I talk to you a sec?" she heard Ethan saying quietly as she headed back into Dr. O.'s modest home.
"Sure," Conner said. Kira paused in the stone hallway, pressing herself against the wall so to better hide in the shadows.
"What's with you and Kira? You're really...touchy-feely, you know? The arm around her and stuff..."
"Dude, you're making a big deal out of nothing," Conner said, laughing it off with a laugh that wasn't that convincing.
"Since you two got here, there has been approximately five minutes in which you weren't in some way touching her. What gives? Are you, like, into her or something?"
Conner, into her? Kira's brow furrowed as she puzzled this over. All this time, she'd been worried that she was into Conner...
"What? Dude. You're...that's crazy. She's Kira."
"Okay, fine, whatever. More importantly than that, she hasn't kicked your butt to kingdom come. Now tell me that's not weird."
"You heard what she said. She's obviously not herself, dude."
Pushing away from the wall, heading towards food, Kira couldn't argue with Conner's claim that she was hardly herself today. But she was feeling a lot more like herself now. Except for that nagging feeling...
"But you could conceivably be into her, right?" Ethan asked, causing Kira to stop dead in the hallway and listen.
"Well, yeah, duh. I mean, she's hot and pretty smart, and funny, and all those good things. And I dig her music." Kira felt a smile crossing her face. Confusing little tingle that seemed Conner-induced aside, it meant a lot to have him say that, as her friend. Especially knowing that he'd never say it to her face. "And I'm also kind of afraid of her sometimes."
She had to clap her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter at that particular tidbit. Grinning, she darted upstairs and raided Dr. O.'s fridge. He lived the life of a bachelor, a single man living a modest life on a teacher's salary, whose money went entirely to his secret underground lab, and whose free time was spent saving the world and coaching teenagers to save the world. She found a few beers located in the vegetable crisper (no veggies to speak of), and debated taking one, just to see if he'd notice, but figured he'd kick her butt if he found out. That, and she wasn't really interested in drinking. She avoided anything but the basics, all in the interest of preserving her vocal chords. There was a slice of cold pizza, a half-full milk carton, a jar of mayonnaise, and a package of deli turkey with only two slices left. Dissatisfied, Kira perused the contents of the pantry next, finding crackers that were only moderately stale, half a loaf of bread, and an unopened jar of peanut butter. She was in the process of making herself some peanut butter crackers when Conner joined her in the kitchen. "Hey," he said, sitting down at the island across from her.
"Hey." She sighed, jabbing the knife in the peanut butter jar and folding her hands on the table before looking at him. "I'm sorry about going off on you earlier. I'm just really freaked out by all of this."
"No, I understand. It's cool."
She held out a cracker as a peace offering. "Snack?"
"Thanks." He chomped on it. "Crackers are kinda stale."
"Yeah. Conner..."
"Yeah?" he raised his eyebrows at her.
"Thanks."
"For..?"
"Taking care of me."
"You already thanked me for that."
"I don't mean just today," she said, gazing down at the worn countertop and tracing her finger over one of the patterns. "I mean...you look out for me. Out in the field and stuff. And, I mean, I don't think I need it or anything, but it's nice of you to do it. It means you're a good leader," she added lamely.
"Not as good as I should be. I mean, I don't look after Ethan like that." He chewed on another stale cracker, this one without peanut butter. "I guess that makes me sexist or something, doesn't it."
"Maybe. It depends. Why do you do it for me? Because you think I can't handle it? Because you think I can't handle it because I'm a girl? 'Cause if it's one of those, then you're sexist."
"It's not like that. I just...I dunno, I feel like I should protect you, I guess. Not that you need protecting," he added quickly.
"Well...thanks." She smiled at him, albeit awkwardly, and he smiled back. It was a nice moment, the kind that came few and far between for any of them these days.
"I'm going to keep doing it, if that's okay."
"You don't have to. I don't need it." She felt bad for repeating the same phrase over and over again.
"I know. I want to, is all. I'm here for you, you know that, right?"
"Yeah." They both reached for another cracker, and their hands bumped. They nervously drew back, avoiding each others eyes. Conner tried again, and when his hand vacated the package, Kira got one. The only sound was their muffled chewing. Kira suddenly found her hand was moving of it's own free will so that her fingertips were brushing Conner's, their hands both flat on the table. After a long moment, still neither of them looking at each other, but not looking at their wayward hands either, his came to rest on top of hers. Warm, strong, comforting. They stayed that way for what seemed like forever. Eating didn't seem very important anymore. For the first time that day, Kira felt completely calm. When she finally dared to meet Conner's eyes, he was staring back at her. This felt weird, but it didn't feel wrong.
"Hey, guys, I finished the morpher," Dr. O. was saying, and suddenly Kira realized he'd come back into the house. Conner removed his hand, instead busying himself with spreading a too-heavy dollop of peanut butter over a stale and therefore not very stable cracker. He stared at his task with the utmost concentration. Their connection was broken.
Dr. O. appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, and handed over Kira's bracelet. "Here you go. No blaster, no worries."
"Thanks," she said, slapping it back on. She noticed for the first time Ethan in the room, dwarfed by Dr. O.'s shadow. Conner's cracker broke beneath the butter knife. "Your crackers are stale, Dr. O."
"Tell me something I didn't know."
"The Hawaiian alphabet only has twelve letters."
They all gaped at him, and he put on an innocent face. "What? I read."
"Not of your own free will," Ethan said. Conner just grinned his trademark grin.
"I think I'm okay now, guys," Kira said, standing up. "I should get home."
"Are you sure?" Conner said. "I mean, are you sure you want to go back to your house? What if something else happens?"
"I should be okay," Kira said. And she truly believed that, because she was beginning to feel like her old self.
"Maybe Conner's right," Dr. O. said. "You don't have anyone at home to take care if you, Kira."
"I can take care of myself," she said.
"Besides, if she has another weird freak out episode, she wouldn't want any family members around, because she'd have a lot of explaining to do," Ethan pointed out.
"Totally," Conner said. "She practically tore the door off its hinges last time. Not to mention giving me a coronary."
"At least you weren't in the line of fire," she said.
"Can't she stay here, Dr. O.?" Ethan said.
Dr. O. shook his head. "I'm probably under enough suspicion as it is, being seen with you guys as often as I do. I wouldn't want to get fired for housing an underage student."
"Absolutely," Kira agreed fervently. "I'm not staying here." She glanced to Conner. "Just give me a ride home? I'll be fine, I swear."
"Okay," he said. "I'll see you guys later." And he followed Kira outside. They climbed into the car and were halfway back to town when Kira, in the middle of changing stations on the radio, slumped over in her seat.