Title: All That Was Left Was Blue

Series: All That Was Left Was Color Series

Author: Cassandra Hunter

Category: Power Rangers

Disclaimer: All I own is the plot.

Plot: A look inside the head of Ethan James.

Notes: Okay, this one has some major drama to it. I didn't even realize that I had the ability to really write drama. Cool...

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Ethan James never had many friends. He wasn't athletic, so he never fit in with the jocks. He wasn't the straight A student who's paper everyone looked at when they thought the person wasn't looking. He wasn't even enough of an outsider that he hung around with the group that Kira had. Most of the friends he did have was on the internet, save the few who went to Reefside with him.

It wasn't that he didn't try.

Oh, no. He tried, as much as others refused to believe it. It was just that most people didn't seem to get him. A majority never even tried. It had even taken his friends a while to understand him.

At least they had made an effort to try. That was more than he had grown to expect of anyone. He had learned a long time ago to not expect very much out of people. That trust people had a way of bitting you in the butt.

That was how Ethan had found this place. It was a small pond deep in the woods, not unlike where they had found the crystals. He picked up a stone and chucked it across the pond, sighing when it made it's dutiful thump. Reaching down, he picked up a handful of the gravel.

Out of all of them, Kira had been the first to even try to make some civilized contact with him. He had know, or existed around, her for most of his life. The had went to the same school and he had been at least one of the same classes with her since Pre-K. She had been nice enough, but neither had put for enough effort to become actual friends. The most time they had spent around each other before they had became rangers were when they had been lab partners in the ninth grade. But after they had become friends, something changed. They had bonded. Maybe it had been the fact that the two had both been outsider. Or it could have been the fact that they had spent more time together because Conner had his clique and soccer in the beginning. Ethan know considered the female in sister sense. The little-sister syndrome as Hayley had affectionately called labeled it.

Conner had been the second one. Ethan had always thought that Conner was an airheaded jock who cared for no one but himself. And the former had been true. But as impossible as it was for Ethan to believe it, Conner cared for other people. Not that his exterior persona showed it. Conner, as he had learned, was a caring individual. If he considered you a friend. Conner was very protective of his friends. And it had surprised him the first time Conner had ever referred to him as a friend. In front of his posse no less. Ethan grinned as he remembered the looks on their faces when Conner blew them off to hang out with him and Kira. Know that was something certainly worth remembering.

For Dr. O, it had been different. There was that particular line between friend and teacher/mentor that they all had lost sight of a while back. It seemed to have been eradicated until it was almost as if it had never been there in the first place. Even know Ethan wasn't sure if it had ever been. The man was a power ranger legend. He was one whom, even if you didn't know much of your power ranger history, you knew of. The man who had become a friend to Ethan, though it had taken a while to reach that point. Ethan would nearly go as far as to say the man had become almost a father figure in his, any of them's, lives, even though none of them would say it out loud. Or in Dr. O's presence anyways. They had learned that the man was a tad touchy about his age.

Hayley, he had more in common with than any of them. Though the woman had not been a ranger into itself, she had done more than her share. Creating new weapons, up-grades, and zord maintenance, which he had learned was hard enough by its self. He would bet anything that her recommendation was the sole reason that he was even considered for the scholarship for MIT. She was, like Dr. O, a legend in her own right.

Then there was Trent. Trent, who he had heard others call a spoiled little rich boy, was somewhat like him. When he wasn't being all evil and stuff. A loner in his own right. Hiding parts of himself that he was afraid others would see and shun him for it. Though, it seemed as though the evil he used to have with in him dulled most of the self-modesty that had so long held him back.

Ethan chucked the final stone as hard as he possibly could, taking it farther than any of the others. He knew that the others seemed to think that he was going incommunicado around them. That he was slowly with drawing himself. And he guessed that he was to some extent. It wasn't personal. He was just setting himself up for the hurt that he knew was coming.

Not the normal hurt of people giving him the cold shoulder or just plain out ostracizing him. The hurt of losing the others as he knew he would. It was a different kind of hurt than he was used to, forcing himself to once again create the armor that others had chipped away. He didn't want to feel the pain of losing them.

It would take awhile, of course. Awhile for the pain to settling in. He wouldn't notice it in the beginning, but it would slowly accumulate over time. They would gradually lose all communication with each other.

The realization of what would happen hadn't come to him until a few months ago. Dr. O had unconsciously planted the seed within him. It had started when Conner had asked him what had happened to the some of the other rangers that he had been on the team with. Dr. O didn't know. Granted, that wasn't much, but it was enough to start with the questions that had always been there, bringing them to the surface.

Ethan picked up one final stone. It was soft and clean from years of erosion and had finally been pushed to dry land. He tossed it in the air once before pitching it with everything he had. When it finally landed with a satisfying clunk, Ethan turned his back and headed for the path. He glanced back only once, when the ripples had finally faded into a quiet stillness that he had realized was so important to him. With a satisfied nod, he turned back and prepared himself for the hike down the trail.

All that was left was blue.