On the one hand, Bridge was really excited that Sky had come up with a plan to help him sleep. Of all of the Rangers on B Squad, Sky was the last person Bridge would've expected to realize he was having a problem. And the fact that he had basically marched over here and demanded that he be allowed to help Bridge get a good night's sleep – it was just crazy.

On the other hand, Bridge was terrified.

So many thoughts and feelings were crashing through his head, he felt like he was going in a million directions at once. In fact, his body did try to do that. Sky didn't exactly roll his eyes, but he had that look, like you just knew he wanted to but was holding himself back. Bridge didn't want to aggravate Sky; not when he was trying to help, so he made a conscious effort to pull himself together.

Bridge plopped himself in a seated position on the bed next to Sky. "Okay, so what do we do?" Sky opened his mouth to respond when Bridge interrupted him. "Brush teeth!"

Bridge literally leapt off the bed, leaving Sky to shake his head at Bridge's level of distractibility. Bridge ducked into his tiny bathroom area. A peek out into the room showed Sky impatiently waiting. Bridge attempted to speak through a mouth full of toothpaste, but Sky's expression of disgust dissuaded him from continuing. Once his dental hygiene routine was complete, Bridge burst back into the main room.

"Anything else that needs to get done before you try to sleep?" asked Sky dryly.

"Nope." answered Bridge.

"No laundry to hang up? No novels to write?"

"Nope. Nope, but I did have this report…"

"Eh!" Sky cut him off with a menacing finger. "If we're going to give this a try, you have to relax enough to fall asleep. You can't do that if you're writing a report."

Bridge knew Sky was right. He also knew he was stalling. So he walked back over to the bed and sat down next to Sky.

Sky glared at him. Bridge looked back blandly. Sky continued to glare for a full minute before he worked himself up to speaking.

"Do you usually sleep sitting up?"

"Oh. No. Well, there was this one time…"

"Eh!" Sky cut him off again. "Lie down and get comfortable."

Bridge followed orders. At least he tried. It wasn't hard to lie down, but it was very hard to get comfortable. First of all, Sky was sitting at the foot of the bed – so the sheet and blanket were held down by his weight. Bridge liked to pull everything loose so his feet could be free, but that couldn't happen with Sky sitting there.

At first Bridge tried to dislodge the sheets surreptitiously. He was completely unsuccessful. Then, he though that by rolling with the blanket he could loosen things up; that didn't work either. About the time he realized he'd have to tell Sky to get up he gave one last mighty yank; at the same time, Sky got up on his own. This led to complete dishevelment of the entire bed.

Bridge sighed happily – it was just the way he liked it.

Bridge noticed that Sky was unable to suppress an eye roll, so he quickly got himself settled. He lay on his left side with his arms curled in against his chest. He bent his legs slightly so Sky could have some room. Sky returned to his position at the end of the bed.

Discomfort quickly returned. It was weird. The situation was weird. Falling asleep on demand was hard. And, Sky was not the easiest person to share silence with.

Bridge shifted his head on the pillow to look down the bed at Sky. "What do we do?"

"You sleep." stated Sky, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"What do you do?"

"I make a shield to block out the negative energy therefore allowing you to get a good night's sleep." He paused. "Sleep is the theme."

"I got that part." Bridge hesitated. He didn't want to give voice to his doubts. What if it doesn't work? What if this is my last chance to stop the nightmares and it doesn't work?

Bridge was distracted when he noticed two things: Sky had reached out to hold his ankle, and he was glowing a light blue. For Bridge, physical contact on Sky's part meant more to him than Sky would ever know. In his day to day living, Bridge protected himself from casual physical contact; there was too much psychic static all around, all the time. He could never process it all; if he tried, it would make him crazy.

Growing up, Bridge had to learn to protect himself not only from psychic static, but from ignorant people. Once people learned he could read auras it quickly translated into "mind-reader", and those who were small-minded or uneducated freaked out. Those people avoided physical contact with him and made sure their children did too. They didn't understand that he couldn't eavesdrop on their thoughts; they just assumed he was a psychic spy or something. It was a lonely way to grow up.

Bridge became accustomed to being physically isolated from others. The gloves were just a small part of what he had to do to keep himself apart from people all the time. And now, here was Sky – he didn't even think twice about it, just reached out to grab his leg. It was an awesome display of Sky's level of trust in Bridge. Bridge was so moved he had to squish his face into the pillow so Sky wouldn't see the tears that had welled up in his eyes.

He tried to play off the moment by focusing on the shield Sky had created.

"Cool!" he said as he wiggled his fingers in front of his eyes. "Glowy."

"Glowy?" repeated Sky.

Bridge had to laugh at Sky's tone. I guess he doesn't like his shields referred to as glowy. Got to remember that for future reference. For the first time in weeks, maybe months, Bridge felt himself begin to relax. This might just work after all.


TBC

Author's Note – I tried. I really tried. I had every intention of making this a one-shot. But once I got started a thousand and twelve plot bunnies started running around in my head. I tried to cage them. I yelled, "Don't I have enough to do for Crossing Paths! Leave me alone!" :sigh: But they won't. And I can't fight them all. :-)

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read and review! - Evil Slash Pirana; Crimson-Ranger; BloomingViolets; Mae; Sye04; Crimson Mystery; Funky in Fishnet; AngelMouse5; Anastasia Athene. Hate to disappoint all of those looking for slash…this ain't it. I'm really going for more of a brotherly feeling…and eventually the whole team's going to bond (Damn those plot bunnies!)

MzDany – I thought if I took a short break from the ninjas I could get revved up and ready to write. Didn't exactly turn out that way. :-P