Disclaimer: Power Rangers still have not been acquired by me. This is still a non-profit production. Nothing has changed.

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Author's Notes: Well, it seems that Boom and Syd are a hit, now, on with the story.

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Boom took Syd, to all places, a steak house for supper. Through much grimacing, Syd found the few chicken and fish items on the menu, and even then, opted for a grilled chicken salad. Boom on the other hand had the twenty-four ounce porterhouse steak, saying that he still needed the protein to help replace what he had lost.

A long slow sunset walk through the park brought to a close one of the most enjoyable days of either of their lives. Not only had it been calm and relaxing, but they had each found a kindred soul in an unlikely person. As the two walked back into the SPD Command Base, they were holding hands with their fingers interlocked and leaning on each other. They stopped at a Y intersection in the hall. One path led to Sydney's room that she shared with Z, and the other led to Boom's private room.

"I guess I need to go and see if Cecilia has gotten the packages delivered yet," said Syd with a slight blush.

Boom nodded, "I probably need to check with Kat. I know she will want to make sure that everything is okay. Plus, I need to clean up my room some. I haven't really had a reason to clean it, but now…"

"You may get a guest at anytime."

It was Boom's turn to blush as he suddenly found the top of his shoes very interesting. "Oh, don't give me that, shy, bashful look. I saw how you were looking at me when I was modeling."

Boom blushed even further. "Well, I guess if you are going to be that bashful, Boom, then I won't be able to ask you to wash my back for me," pouted Syd.

That was all it took, his brain could take no more images, "Well, no, I mean, yes, what I mean is that I could do that, if you wanted…"

Syd smiled at him and shut him up with a soft peck to the lips, "Good," she said softly as she started grazing his cheek line with her teeth, "because taking long, hot, sudsy bubble baths make me so," at this point she bit his earlobe and then released it and whispered into his ear, "feminine."

Boom did the only thing that was possible for any male in his position, he gurgled.

This led to a slight chuckle from Syd, "Boomy, we are going to have to work on your confidence. Why don't you go ahead to your room, and I will meet up with you in the Rec area, in say, an hour?"

"Okay, um, Syd, well, I had a nice time today. Thank you for being there for me and all. It's nice to have someone that I can talk to about… well, you know."

Syd nodded, "It is, and also it's nice to know that I am not alone. See you in an hour?"

"Yes, though it will feel more like days," he said as she started to walk off.

Syd turned around while biting her bottom lip, grinned, and then turned and jogged down the corridor. Boom just watched her go. He watched every bounce, every curve moving in its vector, every hill and every valley, and the hills, oh my, the hills, as they bounced away.

-

Sydney Drew turned the corner and quickly peeked around the edge of wall to see the results of what she had done. She was rewarded with a sight of Carl Boomhauser stupefied from her jog, just as she had planned. She smirked at her ability to do that to males, and then smiled knowing that wasn't why Boom liked her. She walked through the grey corridor to her room and opened the door. There was Z on her bed reading.

Z looked up on Syd's arrival, "I hope you don't have any plans. That," she pointed to Syd's bed, "Will take some time to put up."

Syd looked around to her own bed and saw boxes, lots of boxes, boxes three layers deep on her bed. Her jaw dropped as she approached the mass of cardboard. Seeing an envelope on the top of it, she took it and opened it up.

Syd,

I hope that you appreciate this. If you don't, then I know that I will have to fulfill my promise about Carl. If you don't plan this for the long haul, then leave me some okay?

Your loving cuz,

Cecilia

Sydney pulled out the receipt out of the envelope and noticed that her cousin had comped the entire order. Every single outfit that she had shown Boom today was now in her room, in its own box. Looking over to her roommate Syd said, "Know what this means Z?"

"I'm going to be getting a lot of hand me downs? I don't mind the panties, but the hose are a little long for me, and I don't really fill the bras that well," commented the former street urchin.

"No, well, yes, but Cecilia approved of Boom. Do you know that he is the only guy that I have introduced her to that she has approved of? This, this is amazing."

Z cocked her eyebrow, "And since when did someone approving of Boom matter to you?"

Syd could only blush. "Well, I better get started putting these away."

"You didn't answer my question. When did approval of Boom mattering start?" inquired the yellow ranger.

Syd opened her closet and pulled out an entire stack of boxes, "I'll just set these to the side and you can go through them when you want to do so, okay?"

"I'll help you if you answer me," needled Z in a sing song voice. "Six hands are better than two."

Syd stopped, accounted for how long it would take her to put away the boxes and still change for Boom, and then sighed. "Okay, okay, but make with the duplicating and help me. I'm punching a clock here." Sys started to open the boxes and began to organize them. She stopped and looked at the silky soft offering of the current box. It was a light pink panty and bra set with matching thigh highs, she set it aside and looked at Z, "Since this morning, well maybe before, but not like this morning. Boom has always been, well Boom. He was always like the stray dog that nobody really wanted, but always was around when you needed him. As much as he was abused, pushed away, or tormented, in the end you knew that you could count on him…" Syd paused and slid to the ground. "I noticed Cruger and Kat breaking down their walls a while ago. Before Isinia died actually, and we all knew how Boom felt about Kat. I knew it would end badly, and I didn't want it to. Boom deserves better than that. He worked himself almost to DEATH for Kat, and all she did was keep pining for the one person that she knew she wouldn't get. Then she did, Z, and we all had a feeling, even if we didn't know, it was going to happen when it did. Everyone except Boom, that is. As usual, he was wrapped up in his own mind. The kindest, most caring guy you would ever want to meet was going to go down in flames, and no one cared.

"Kat took care of the developmental stuff, but do you know who made sure all the repairs were done to the Zords? It's Boom. He is the one that makes sure we are safe out there on a day to day basis. He takes care of us. Cruger and Kat may nurture us, but it's BOOM that makes sure we are okay. Look at all the testing he does to make sure the latest inventions are safe. How many times has he been hurt so we wouldn't?

"But no one cares about that, or him, so he was going to get ripped to shreds from the inside out. When he didn't blow up, or implode immediately, I thought he would be okay. When he didn't show up this morning, and then the blood… I thought what we all thought.

"When I went to his room it was as an SPD officer, but when I got there, he needed a friend. I found out that we actually had a lot in common, and the feelings that I had been having for him bloomed greater than they were… Z, I have never been with anyone that wasn't out to try to impress me, or trying to show me off. Boom was happy just being with me and me being with him. We spent so much time doing nothing," Syd caught Z looking at the boxes that she was putting away, "Well, some of the time. I even got him a manicure at the spa. What other guy do you know that I could do that with?"

Z finished putting all but the one box into Syd's closet, "Not many that would still be interested in you like Boom probably was at the lingerie store."

"In either me or Cecilia. She was highly interested in Boom. She even told me point blank that if I screwed up, that she would not hesitate to make sure he was happy."

"Whoa, wait, Cecilia, your cousin that was the lingerie model?"

Syd nodded, "After the showing, I was getting changed and when I came out, she was feeling him up."

Z gasped, "Boom was feeling her up?"

"No," said Syd shaking her head, "what I said. She was feeling him up, and I know her well enough that she liked what she found."

"Well…"

"Yeah, I know what you mean, but anyway, Boom behaved like a gentleman, he even opened doors for me."

Z 'pulled herself together' and sat on the floor next to Syd. "So?"

"So, now what?" Syd asked as she looked at the clock, "I have thirty minutes to go from casual, to melt his brains out of his nether regions."

"Oh, okay, just as long as it's nothing impossible."

Syd giggled as she stood up. "Yeah, Boom is such an innocent type of guy that I could do it in a white cotton set… hmmm."

"What are you thinking?" nervously asked Z.

"How good are you at braiding hair?"

-

"So, how are you feeling?" asked the felinoid.

"Well, besides…" Boom decided to let his rapidly healing heartbreak go, "Pretty good."

Kat looked at the charts from the test. "Well, you didn't lose any muscle mass, that's good, but your 'reserves' are down ninety percent."

Boom nodded, "I figured as much. I have been eating today," he said defensively. "Two double bacon cheeseburgers at lunch and a steak at supper. I wanted to get some more drinks from you to keep on hand in case I need them."

Kat looked at him, "Usually you just down them here and be done with it."

Boom looked away from her gaze, "That's when I didn't care about the, well you know… Now, well, there is a reason I don't want to, okay?"

"Sydney?" inquired Kat as she sat down next to Boom and put her arm around him.

Again, the top of his shoes held fascination for him. "Yeah, I mean, no, well, maybe… Okay, I think that I may be falling for her."

"You think you might be falling for her?"

"Okay I have fallen for her hard," Boom blushed more than he should have. "I mean that I have fallen for her deeply," Boom tried to correct himself. "I mean, who wouldn't."

"Just take your time, okay?" coached Kat. "If you rush into it too quickly, then you will run a risk of just using her as a replacement."

"How could she be a replacement?" queried Boom acidly. "There was never anything to replace. Everyone knows that."

"Boom," Kat tried to reason with him, "just because we didn't have a relationship, doesn't mean that there was nothing there on either of our parts. I don't want to lose you as a friend, or as a co-worker. I would like to think that you feel the same way."

Boom sighed greatly, "I don't want to lose you either, Kat… It's just right now; it's kind of hard to talk about it. I don't hurt as much when I'm with Syd. She actually makes me feel good, good mentally, and like it is good to be me. For the first time in my life, I feel like I am wanted by a woman, by two women actually."

The last statement floored the scientist, "Wait, Boom, two women? Explain."

"Well, today while Syd and I were shopping she went into her cousin's store."

Kat nodded, "I've been in there with Syd before. Isn't Cecilia her name?"

Boom nodded quickly, "That's her," Kat noticed a far away look in his eyes, "Well, she made numerous comments that if Syd messed up and lost me, that she would not hesitate to pursue me." Boom took a deep breath, "Kat, I have never been a good looking person, but to have these to women say that for all practical purposes they would fight over me, it made me feel damn good on the inside."

Kat started to preen Boom's hair, "So, if you had the choice, which one would you choose?"

Boom tried to ignore the grooming, "Well I would choose Syd. I know her already and am comfortable around her."

"But Cecilia?"

"I don't know, Kat, there is something about her that tells me I would never be bored."

-

Boom left Kat's lab, his hair now laying down neatly. He really didn't like her doing it, but he understood that it was a way to show care and concern from her raising, and truthfully, the tests had taken longer than he had expected and he knew he wouldn't be able to make it to his quarters and back to the Rec room in the allotted time.

He made it to the room with two minutes to spare; only to find Sky and Bridge were already there. Sky turned and, upon realizing it was Boom that entered Sky glared at the tech who started to sit down on the sofa. As Boom sat, Sky moved across the room.

"Get up," growled Sky.

"What?"

"I said get up, Boom."

Boom started to stand, though apparently not fast enough for Sky, who grabbed Boom by the shirt and forced him to his feet. Sky looked down at Boom's eyes and spoke, "I don't know what your game is, but Syd deserves better than someone like you. You're nothing but a wash out."

From somewhere deep within the heart of man beats forces beyond the ken of all natural order. This goes true for all of humankind, Carl Boomhauser not withstanding. He felt a surge of what some would call courage, what others could call inner strength, what some areas would call cajones. Whatever one would call it, Boom had full access to it when he responded. "So, what does she deserve, someone like you?"

"Yes."

Boom batted away Sky's hands, "Someone that is so me deep in themselves that they can't see when someone else is hurting? Someone that is concerned with looking good to the detriment of the other person, or someone that is more concerned about their own life that they other person means shit to them in the long run when they have been used up?"

That is when red ranger Sky Tate lost it and swung his fist, connecting hard with the left cheek of Boom. Neither men noticed that in the doorway stood two women, one short and dusky complexioned, the other tall with fair complexion, her hair in twin braids and an outfit sure to give any otaku a nosebleed. The sound of the strike echoed as Boom spit blood out of his mouth and turned to look at Sky. Boom turned back to Sky and glared through him. You could hear a pin drop as he charged the ranger.