Disclaimer: Not for profit, just evil glee. Also, this particular chapter was based on a bit of fic a friend wrote while we were plotting together, with some lines directly filched off her piece. Thank you, N.E. Shaw! Make sure you check out some of her stories too )

Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed! I so very much appreciate comments from my readers ) Obviously the one-shotness didn't come true, not that I have a much better idea of where this is going. I'll just have to be inspired along the way.

Withdraw

It was dark. There was no light and no sound in the room save for the periodic blink and bleep of the various monitors clustered around the bed. Starched white curtains hung stiffly all around, further isolating this small corner of the infirmary from the rest of the world, even though the room it resided in was void of other occupants. Dr. Manx called such treatments 'sensory deprivation'—ideal conditions for a patient in psychic shock.

Z didn't see how such conditions were ideal for anyone when the goal was to try to bring them back to consciousness. Who would want to return to such a dark and foreboding atmosphere? Also, she knew that stimulation was a way of life for their meandering-minded Green Ranger. Most would have assumed that any additional stimuli would only contribute to the chaos of psychic impressions in his mind, but it was just the opposite that was true. Stimulation perceived through his five normal senses actually helped to distract him from the barrage of information his sixth, psychic sense picked up.

She reached for the dimmer above the headboard and turned it slightly, throwing a weak, pale yellow patch of light over the bed. Her expression immediately tightened, the corners of her mouth turning down. Bridge's face was a frighteningly ill shade of gray, and he lay so still that at first, only the heart and respiratory monitors could assure her he was still alive.

"Hey," Z whispered, a little hoarsely in her effort to keep her voice low. She cleared her throat and tried again.

"It's Z. No one told me specifically I couldn't come visit you, though they certainly weren't encouraging it either. We've been scouring your room and security footage for any evidence of an intruder, but we can't find any. Cruger thinks it was an inside job—every staff member and cadet in the Academy is being cross-checked and scrutinized."

Z tugged a nearby chair closer to the bed and sank into it. "I think only you can tell us who did this to you. Every avenue we've tried has come up blank. We need you to tell us, Bridge. We need you to wake up. We need you back."

She didn't realize she'd taken Bridge's hand in her own, and felt the worn leather of his glove soft and warm beneath her fingers. She lifted her other hand and stroked the back of his glove with her thumb. She couldn't imagine lying here in this state for so long, in this quiet and eerie corner of a room. The Bridge she knew, the one full of babble and charm, would have gone mad with loneliness or boredom or both. Where was he now, somewhere inside this silenced shell of his former self?

Z's eyes traveled from his hand back up to his placid face. Maybe the stale lighting was partially to blame for his sickly coloring; it was almost directly above his head, illuminating his face while leaving the valley of his throat shadowed beneath his chin.

Z frowned. When she leaned in closer, she could see darker spots adorning both sides of his throat, somewhat symmetrically, ones that didn't move with the light.

Her eyes widened in horror. The spots weren't shadows; they were bruises, just the right shape and size to have been formed by someone's hands. Near his Adam's apple there were two particularly dark spots, probably where someone's thumbs had pressed down on his windpipe. Someone had tried to strangle him to death.

"Oh, Bridge," Z squeezed his hand, the hard light of anger starting to flare in her eyes. Neither Cruger or Dr. Manx had mentioned that little detail.

"We'll find who did this to you," she promised the Green Ranger. "They're not going to get away with this."

Her grip on Bridge's hand didn't ease, and she realized she was half hoping for a returning squeeze, even the weakest twitch. But there was nothing. Bridge was silent and still as ever, lost in some darkness she couldn't reach.

…Or could she? What would happen, she wondered, if she took off his glove and his skin touched hers? Would that intense psychic channel open between them while he was unconscious? The Green Ranger normally avoided direct physical contact because that unleashed everything in a person's mind into his own, in one huge involuntarily stream of information overkill.

But perhaps this one time, that was just the jolt and lifeline Bridge needed to return to the waking world. Maybe he needed someone to guide him back.

Feeling both uneasy and hopeful, Z cast a cautious glance around before tearing at the Velcro on his glove. The crisp rip of the little hooks and loops pulling apart seemed so impossibly loud that for a moment she worried half the infirmary staff would come running in.

No one did. She peeled back the glove and set it on the bed just beside his hand. Then, she took a deep breath and gently laid her fingers over his.

The world immediately went black.

x-x-x-x-x

She was fully aware, alert and unhindered mentally, but she couldn't feel her body. When she tentatively tried to reach out into the darkness, she only felt an impression of herself moving forward. The same happened when she called out Bridge's name. She only felt an impression of her voice projecting outward—she didn't actually hear it.

She was in a mental realm, a place of non-physicality, and she only knew that because of the few explanations the Green Ranger had given her to try to explain what his powers were like. Did this mean she'd been successful? That she'd made the connection she was hoping to make? Was Bridge somewhere here?

She 'called' his name again and waited. After a moment, there was a faint impression of a green glow from a nameless direction, and she 'turned' to it. It was warm and familiar, and for an ephemeral moment, she rejoiced. Then the glow began to dim, leeched into and drowned out by the darkness.

No! She tried to 'run' to it, but without any true direction in this place, she could very well have been running further from it. She was starting to feel lost and disorientated, and cold even though temperature nor her physical body existed here. The darkness shifted around her and constricted, feeling as heavy and impenetrable as the tarp covering of a pool when one is under it and desperate for air.

"Bridge!"

Confusion slammed into her, and Fear and Panic and Anguish and Tension. The emotions weren't hers, but for a moment they were, and they made her slip. She was drowning, being tossed and thrashed by an invisible black wave, helpless as a rag doll. She was sure she would lose herself to that darkness when she heard a voice over the silent roar. Bridge's voice.

"Withdraw!" he said. She had to focus hard to hear him.

"What?"

"Withdraw!" This time, the word was accompanied by a harsh shove. "Get out of here, Z!"

"Not without you!" she responded, and felt herself sinking again.

"Come back for me!" he returned. "You can't help me now, not while he's free!"

"Not while who's free?"

Bridge gave her another forceful shove, and she was suddenly falling upward, slipping free of the inky darkness. She felt light and unrestricted again, but she knew without a doubt those black tentacles were pulling at Bridge instead, dragging him back down and deeper into that suffocating sea. She wanted to reach out for him, but she didn't dare.

"Bridge!"