Disclaimer: no one mentioned belongs to me, I guarantee it.

"I'm going after Elsa," Conner said.

"No way, you're not going in alone," Dr. O. said, ducking as a drone swung for his head.

"She'll get the egg, Dr. O.! Besides, I've gone against her and Zeltrax by myself before. I'll be fine. You guys can handle the drones."

"Conner--" the good professor started, but the Red Ranger was already running off, and he, Ethan, and Kira were under siege by a throng of drones. "Kira, go after him!" Dr. O. commanded, producing his Brachio Staff to hold back what had once been his creation. "Ethan and I will be fine."

"Right," she said, running off after Conner. Her leader was racing Elsa for the egg, sandwiched between dumpsters at the end of a wide alley. Kira reached for her blaster instinctively, before she remembered that it wasn't there. But Conner, well ahead of her, had his at the ready and when Elsa scooped up the egg, he fired.

The blast caught her in the side, and she went down, sending the egg flying. Conner used a burst of his super speed to catch it before it hit the pavement, but in the process he dropped his gun. Kira felt her blood run cold, and she yelped a warning, but Conner didn't hear. The blaster was directly in Elsa's line of sight, only a few feet away...she was getting up...she was picking up the gun...she was charging, she was aiming...

The first blast incinerated the egg in Conner's hands. Apparently if Elsa couldn't have it, no one could. Then she advanced on the trapped Red Ranger, firing and firing. Conner went down, losing his morph, and Kira started to advance, but she already knew what was going to happen. Elsa fired at the defenseless, powered-down Ranger, discarded the blaster, and returned to her master, wounded, with the loss of the egg, but the defeat of a Ranger.

Kira knew it was no use, she remembered all of this, but already she was out of morph, feeling for Conner's pulse, feeling him dying in her arms, feeling him dead in her arms. She screamed his name, the air rippling with the force of her Dino Gem's power as it was awakened in a bout of grief.

Conner's jersey was clinging to her back, fused to her skin by sweat. She was sitting up, breathing heavily. "Just another dream, just another dream..." she chanted to herself, but it was still so horrifically real.

"Kira?" She felt Conner's hand on her shoulder, and she collapsed wearily against his chest, on the verge of tears again. She couldn't keep doing this. He held her quietly while her panic attack subsided. "Did I scream again?" she asked.

"Yeah, but the thunder drowned it out, so don't worry about my parents," he said. Straining, she heard the steady patter of rain against the windowpane, a noise she had previously thought was her own drumming heartbeat. "I wasn't so lucky," he said.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"It's not your fault," he assured her.

"There was more this time," she said. "I went a little farther back, I saw what happened before. There was an egg, and you and Elsa were after it..."

"Where was it?" he asked.

"Downtown somewhere."

"That's great! Kira, before we didn't know exactly what was happening, if what you were seeing was real or not. Now all we have to do is have Hayley do a search downtown for an egg, and if we find one..."

"If we find one, what? It's real, and you die! If we find one, this happens just that much sooner! It was your gun, Conner, not mine!" At least she had that, the lack of guilt. But she still had the grief. "Please. Don't tell Dr. O. about that part of the dream. I'm doing better not knowing for sure if it's a vision or not. Please," she added again quietly.

"I won't," he promised. She could tell right away that he wasn't thrilled about the idea, but neither of them said anything about that.

The bed jostled as she lay down again, then more so as he followed suit. After a moment of silence, Kira found herself shifting so that she was closer to him. She could feel his warmth resonating, penetrating through the covers that she was under. "Conner, I don't know...this is embarrassing for me, but...I'm scared. I'm really scared."

"It's okay," he said, stretching his arm across his chest to hug her slightly. "It'll be okay."

"I'm not sure it'll ever be okay," Kira muttered. And though she felt weirdly safe next to Conner, she couldn't help thinking that they were just two terrified kids, thrown into something much bigger than either of them could handle.

The next morning, Conner was already up and dressed when Kira woke up. "My parents both left early for work this morning," he said, "so you don't have to worry about hiding or anything. But you might want to hurry, we're going to be late."

"Right," she said, yawning. "Actually, I feel pretty okay now."

"No more dreams?"

"Nope." She grinned. "And no headache, and I don't even feel tired! I think maybe I beat this."

"That's great, Kira," he said.

"We'll have to drop by my house before school," she said, "so I can change. I can't exactly show up at school wearing your clothes."

"We'll tell them I gave you a ride," he said.

"Look, I don't want to be lying to them any more than you , but..."

"Hey, it was my idea for you to stay here, wasn't it?" Conner cut in. "It's fine. I'll be waiting in the car."

"Yup," she said, watching as he left the room. She quickly changed out of his jersey and back into yesterday's clothes and then went to get him. He made a madcap drive to her house, and waited patiently in the driveway while she darted inside.

In her own room, where she hadn't been in over a day, she didn't have time to appreciate its familiarity, only time to change quickly, then grab her makeup and schoolbooks and guitar. After spending the night with Conner's sheets, Conner's jersey, and then resting against Conner himself, she was overwhelmed with the scent she had focused on yesterday, and was overcome by its absence in her own room.

As Conner started to drive for the school, Kira started to apply her heavy eye makeup. "Is that really necessary?" Conner said.

"Yeah, kinda," she said, rolling her eyes. As a guy, he'd never understand. As a complete idiot, he'd understand even less.

"You look fine without it..." he said. "I mean, you look fine with it on, and everything, but you don't look bad without it, you know..?" She glanced at him and he sighed. "I'll shut up now."

"You missed your usual practice this morning," she said. "Sorry about that."

"It's not a problem."

"If I had missed a rehearsal, I would've been slightly murderous."

"The shocking thing here is that you went a full day without your guitar."

"You went a full day without kicking your bocce ball around. That's shocking."

Conner just smiled and pulled into the parking lot.