Disclaimer: Power Rangers belongs to Disney and the like, which I am not affliated with.
"Trent," Hayley breathed. "You're okay. I'm so glad."
"Thanks to you," he said softly, and there was a flicker of something in his eyes. He shook his head, and it was gone. "The island blew up, didn't it."
"I'm sorry," she said. "Mesogog didn't make it out."
"Mesogog's not my father."
"But Mercer is," Dr. O. said.
"And now he's dead," Trent said with aggravating, unnatural calm.
"Trent, I'm sorry," Hayley said gently. She stepped close to him, and put a hand on his shoulder. "If we'd known..."
"You would've tried to save him?" scoffed Trent.
"Yes," she said firmly. "We would have."
"That means nothing coming from someone who isn't even a Ranger," he said coldly.
"Just because she doesn't wear the suit doesn't mean she isn't one of us," Ethan broke in. "She's more of a Ranger than you are."
"Ethan, that's enough," Dr. O. cut in. "Hayley's right, though, Trent. We would've tried to save him. Anton Mercer was a friend of mine."
"If that's how you measure your friendships, then it's a very good thing I'm not on this team," Trent sneered. He started towards the stairs.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Ethan demanded, jumping up.
Trent paused, his hand on the railing, glancing over his shoulder at Ethan with empty eyes. "I'm leaving."
"I don't think so," Ethan said. "We need your help."
Trent laughed, and it was the first time in awhile that any of them had seen him display a real emotion. "Yeah, right."
"You have some of that meteor rock still, don't you," Ethan said, recalling the boy who'd been fighting the power of the gem once upon a time.
Trent's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "What do you want with it."
"We need it to get Dr. O. back to his normal self."
"And why should I help you?" the White Ranger demanded.
Something in Ethan snapped. "Why? Why? Are you out of your mind? The city was being destroyed, and you ran away. You're a coward."
"Oh yeah?" asked Trent, but Ethan had operated with lightning fast reflexes, taking Dr. O.'s blaster from its holster and aiming it at Trent. "You don't have Mesogog to run and hide behind now," he said calmly. "You're going to give us that meteor rock."
Kira had long since checked Conner into the hospital. When she'd gotten hold of Hayley via communicator, perched in an empty bathroom stall, the tech whiz had informed her that she'd called Conner's mother, but Kira hadn't seen her.
Kira couldn't stay in Conner's room a minute longer. Watching the doctors flocking around him like vultures, stabbing needles into him, threading tubes through his body, it was all too much. She'd abandoned the room ages ago and had been wandering the floor like a ghost for she didn't even know how long. She debated getting something to drink. She wasn't thirsty, but all of the patients' relatives drifting through the halls were clutching coffee mugs or soda cans, and she suspected it might be the only key to their sanity.
Conner was standing by the Coke machine.
"Conner--?" she started, then didn't know how to finish, instead running to him and embracing him tightly. "Conner, oh thank God..."
He gently disentangled himself. "You must be Kira."
"Eric," she realized, flushing with embarrassment and stepping back. "I'm sorry, I--"
The boy held up his hand with a gentle smile. "No worries. Not the first time, won't be the last."
Gazing at Eric McKnight for the first time now, she was surprised that she could have made the mistake. Sure, the boys were identical twins, but Eric's hair was shorter, darker, and flatter to his head, his stance was not as tall as Conner's, and his smell was completely different.
"How'd you know who I was?" she asked suspiciously.
He shrugged. "Conner talks a lot about you when I talk to him," he said. "Keeps babbling on about this smart, funny, talented, beautiful girl he'd met. I got the impression that you two really cared about each other, and the way you hugged me just now...had to be you." Eric flashed her a kind grin, and said, "You're here alone, right?" She didn't know how he knew, but she nodded. "Come sit with me, then."
Eric put his arm around her shoulders and steered the numb Kira down the hall. She couldn't help thinking that the last time someone had bestowed this gesture on her, it was Conner, trying to comfort her. It had worked then. It wasn't working now.
In one of the waiting rooms, a man and a woman were sitting in the corner, not looking at each other. The strong resemblance of the man to both McKnight twins confirmed that these were Conner's parents. "Mom, Dad, this is Kira," Eric announced.
Mrs. McKnight looked up sharply. "Kira? Conner's Kira?"
"Yeah..." Kira said uncertainly.
"He's always running off, he was getting into fights, he said it was for you...he comes home bruised and bleeding...I just don't know what to think," the woman said in a voice that was angry and desperate all at once.
"He should come back to Blue Bay with me and Eric," Mr. McKnight said. "A more structured environment is all the boy needs--"
"He is not going back with you, Roger!" Mrs. McKnight said. "He's perfectly fine here!"
"He's not all that fine if he's lying in a hospital bed," her ex-husband argued.
Kira looked over at Eric and saw the pain on his face. Clearly, he'd thought that his family was going to be united in the face of this tragedy, but it was not the case. Conner was the one that Kira wanted to help more than anything, but his situation was out of her hands. She could help Eric now.
She decided that Dr. O., Ethan, and Hayley would agree with her. Conner's future was too uncertain, and if the inevitable were to happen, Kira wanted his family to know the truth. What their son and brother had been fighting for, what he might die for.
"Mrs. McKnight, Mr. McKnight, could you sit down, please?" she asked in her most placating tone. "Eric, you too. I have something important to tell you about Conner."
Eric knew the most about Kira, but even that was very little, and none of them could possibly have guessed whatever it was Kira wanted to tell them. But even though she was a stranger to them, they recognized the seriousness in her eyes and complied.
Kira arranged herself in one of the uncomfortable chairs and faced Conner's family. "The thing is, Conner is a...well, he's a Power Ranger."
They gaped at her wordlessly, and she plowed ahead, "He's the Red Ranger, the leader. He first got the power back in September. That's why he's so secretive, that's why he runs off without explanation, that's why he comes home injured."
"How do you know this?" Mr. McKnight asked, narrowing his eyes at her.
"Because I'm a Ranger too," Kira said calmly. She pushed her sleeve up, revealing her bracelet. "Ready," she issued the command, and before their eyes it shifted into morpher mode, the yellow Ptera head staring up at them with one red eye. "I'm not going to morph here for obvious reasons, but rest assured that I'm not kidding." She sighed, and launched into an explanation of the hell that her team had gone through in the past few days, making sure to emphasize how Conner had come through for the Rangers again and again. At the end of her tale, she was crying, and Eric switched seats so that he could give her a hug.
"Conner is a Ranger," Mrs. McKnight marveled. "I can't believe it."
"I can," Eric said. "Man, that's so awesome."
"He's the Red one," Mr. McKnight said, puffing up proudly. "That's my boy."
"Conner is very brave," Kira said, and she spoke quietly, but they immediately stilled in order to hear her words. "He wasn't always he best Ranger, but he's gotten better. He's strong, and he's smart...ish, and very dedicated. He takes care of us. We are so incredibly lucky to have him as a leader, and I'm very lucky to know him as a person and have him as a friend." She choked on the words, tears flooding her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry to spring this on you. I'm--"
Eric's arm was warm across Kira's back, and Mrs. McKnight patted her hand. "I'm glad you told us," his mother said carefully. "I'm glad you felt you could trust us with this."
"We won't tell anyone," Mr. McKnight assured her.
Kira nodded her thanks. "I should go," she murmured, and they let her stand, but she just returned to Conner's room. There were no doctors or nurses around, and Conner was asleep still. She sat down next to him. "I'm scared for you, Conner," she admitted. "You asked me to tell you the truth, and I couldn't. Because the truth is, I don't know if you're going to make it out of this. I didn't tell you you're going to be okay because I don't really believe it. I'm a horrible person for thinking that. I should've done something. I should've fought her harder the first time. If I'd been a better Ranger when it had really counted, you would've gotten out in one piece. I'm really sorry, Conner, and I'm so scared."
"You should be scared."
Kira looked up sharply; standing in the doorway, brandishing her sword, was Elsa.
Trent stared at Ethan, and stared at the laser gun in Ethan's hands. Dr. O. and Hayley were both regarding the exchange with trepidation; they'd never known Ethan to be like this. "We need that rock, Trent," Ethan continued evenly. He was so sick and tired of getting trounced by this hack.
Trent dug in his pocket, and produced a small chunk of rock. "That's the biggest piece I could get," he said. He stared at it; they all stared at it, realizing the implications of Trent still possessing the meteor fragment. Once upon a time, he'd wanted to be saved. Not by the Rangers, he'd continually refused their offers to help free him form the gem's control, but the rock he held out to Ethan now was a testament to there being some good in him still, somewhere. Or at the very least, the desire to change. Perhaps he'd intended to use the meteor to help Mesogog. Either way, the fact that Trent still had the rock came with huge implications.
And it was now in Ethan's hands.
He gave it to Hayley. "I believe you know what to do with this," he said.
She nodded with a grateful smile. "This will help a lot, Ethan."
"I can't let you do that," rasped Dr. O., grabbing Hayley's arm and stopping her in her tracks.
"Tommy..?" she asked, confused, her fingers clutched tightly around the rock.
"How stupid are you people?" he scoffed. "All I have to do is play nice for half a second, and you guys would give me anything."
Hayley paled. Trent's eyebrow raised slightly, but he said nothing. Ethan promptly fixed the blaster on his mentor. "I won't hesitate to shoot you, Dr. O.," he said. "Let her go."
"You would never," scoffed Dr. O., standing up, his gloved hand still clamped firmly around Hayley's wrist. She was beginning to look more than a little scared.
Ethan made the shot.