Disclaimer: Power Rangers is not mine. This story is mine.

Jessica01: So do I. :P

Ashley Hammond/Astro Yellow: Here, I finally updated!

Just Jill: It's not confusing at all. I think that's was I was going for. I needed Ashley to get angry, and that seemed a pretty good way to do it.

Jenny: Umm... I posted a romance theme because I'm completely crazy and all the little voices in my head don't feel that I'm doing nearly enough writing with just the two stories I have up and the others I'm working on? Yeah, I'm completely crazy. :D

Chapter 20

"Andros?"

A hand smacked the back of his head hard enough to jolt him awake. Blinking sleep out of his eyes, Andros slowly pieced together that he was at work. He'd fallen asleep at his desk, and now Zhane was standing in front of him, his expression one of extreme amusement.

"What?" he mumbled groggily, rubbing at his eyes. "Did something happen? What are you doing here?"

"Waking you up, apparently." Zhane grinned. "Is your job really this boring?"

"Yeah." Andros yawned. "And I didn't get much sleep last night."

Zhane smirked.

Andros glared at him. "If you must know, some man showed up at our house last night looking for Ashley. She told him to go home and he... didn't like that. I kept waking up, thinking he'd come back."

"What'd he want with Ash?"

"I don't know," Andros admitted. "But nothing good... Why are you here, again?"

Zhane sighed. "Karone and I want to go home."

"What?" Andros woke up the rest of the way. "You're going back to KO-35?"

"Not permanently," his friend was quick to say. "A few months, maybe a year."

"A year?" he repeated softly. "Why?"

"They need us," Zhane said simply. "When we left them, things were good, but now they're having trouble staying together. Astr- Dark Spectre, sorry- practically destroyed the planets that produced fuel, and there's only so much food for so many people. All the colonies nearby are practically at war with each other. There's no law, nothing. They need help. They need us."

Andros sighed. "You should go, then. You and Karone."

Zhane looked at him oddly. "Andros?"

"They're my people too," he burst out. "I shouldn't be sitting here, doing nothing to help them when they need it!"

"You could-"

"No," he said quietly, shaking his head. "I can't go. I can't leave Ashley, and I won't ask her to give up her life here just so-"

"And why not?" Zhane demanded. "How do you know she wouldn't want to go? She's one of the kindest, most giving people I've ever met. How do you know she wouldn't want to help?"

"It wouldn't be fair to her," Andros insisted. "She has a life here."

"And you had one on KO-35," Zhane retorted. "Look, can't you just talk to her? Ask her if she might want to go? Even for only a few months?"

"I could," he said finally. "But I don't think I should."

"Andros?"

"I can't," he said firmly. "You and Karone go to KO-35. I'm staying here."

"Andros-"

"I can't," he repeated. "Not when everything is almost back to how it was before."

"Andros." Zhane sighed. "What are you talking about?"

"Ashley," he explained. "We're all right again. I can't risk ruining that."

"Andros, if you and Ashley were 'all right' again, you wouldn't be afraid to talk to her now."

"I'm not-"

"You are," Zhane told him firmly. "Why?"

Andros glanced down at his hands and mumbled something unintelligible. Zhane rolled his eyes at the ceiling, and sighed.

"What was that, again?"

"I can't ask her to give up anymore of her life for me," Andros said finally.

Zhane rolled his eyes once again. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Her family never wants to see her again because of me," Andros explained.

"That was her choice," Zhane reminded him.

"I took away her child."

"Her child?" Zhane repeated. "Wasn't that baby half yours?"

"He stopped being mine when I let him die," Andros nearly shouted. "Don't you see, Zhane? Everything I do just hurts her, but somehow, she still loves me. If I ask her to move halfway across the universe, and she says yes, I already know it's going to go horribly wrong. I can't hurt her again."

"So... your plan is to be unhappy and hope she doesn't notice."

"I'm not unhappy," Andros protested. "I shouldn't be, not when I have her."

"I still say you talk to her."

"I can't."

"Then I give up," Zhane announced. "Andros, you're being an idiot."

Andros said nothing, though his eyes narrowed as he glared down at the floor. "Does it matter?"

"Not to me," Zhane said cheerfully, heading towards the door. "But I don't live with you, and I'm pretty sure Ash is gonna notice."