Disclaimer Nothing's changed in the last day, so... Power Rangers still isn't mine.
Chapter 2
"Power down," Zhane muttered. Picking himself up off the ground, he glanced down at the girl in his arms. "You all right?"
Her head bobbed up and down weakly. "I'm fine."
Zhane raised an eyebrow, struck with a sudden urge to laugh. With her face and back bloodied and bruised, this girl was clearly in need of medical attention, and her denial of the fact... She reminded him far too much of someone else.
He sent a wry glance in Karone's direction. She stared steadily back at him, equally bemused. The moment she had freed them of their shackles, the remaining three rangers of Earth had picked themselves up off of the ground and were now insisting that they were all right.
"You're back already?"
This time, the glance shared between Zhane and Karone was more of a wince. He sighed, letting all the air whoosh out of his lungs. "Andros - "
"Who are they?" Andros cut in, his face darkening as he glared at first his friend and then his sister. "What happened?"
"We're rangers," the dark-skinned man in red answered for him. "Well, we were rangers, anyway."
"Rangers of Earth," Zhane added in an undertone. Andros nodded stiffly to acknowledge the words.
"I'm assuming you blew your cover tonight?" he said, eyeing the three in torn clothes and then the girl still in Zhane's arms. The moment his gaze landed on her, his hazel eyes hardened far more than Zhane would have ever thought possible.
"What were we supposed to do, let them die?" Karone retorted, fully fed up with her brother. "They're rangers, Andros. Rangers take care of one another. You do remember that?"
Zhane would have sworn Andros had trouble not to flinch. "I - "
His words were cut off as the Megaship shuddered violently, throwing all of them against the bulkheads. Zhane groaned, realizing that Cosmos and Lyra were disappointed over losing their prisoners.
"Deca, can you get us out of this system?" he shouted over the shrilling of the alarms.
"Affirmative."
"Then do it," Andros ordered. "Hyperrush nine."
The rush of acceleration threw them all forward again and the abrupt deceleration threw them all backward, but when the Megaship came to a halt, all was calm. Zhane let out a sigh of relief, silently thanking Deca as he stared up at her red eye.
"Right," he said. "Let's go check out the damage."
Karone sighed but nodded.
"Can we help?" one of the Terrans asked, the girl with long raven hair and a tattered pink shirt.
Zhane hesitated. "You're welcome to come along," he said finally. "If you can be of any help, we'll let you know."
"At the very least, we'll give you a tour," Karone said with a wry grin. "Come on."
Andros was scowling at them and doing a poor job of hiding it. Zhane sighed, realizing that his friend wasn't going to be of much help if the repairs were major ones.
"Andros," he said, nodding at the girl he'd never quite gotten around to setting down. "Take care of her."
Without further warning, he'd transferred the girl from his arms to Andros's, despite Andros's startled protestations. The words died in his throat as he stared down at her, and for a fleeting moment, Zhane would have sworn he saw something almost... tender flash through his friend's eyes. It was gone as quickly as it came, and when he looked again, Andros was wearing his usual sullen expression. With a sigh, Zhane turned and followed Karone.
Andros dumped the girl carelessly onto one of the beds in the medical bay. Ignoring her soft groan and the twinge of guilt that accompanied it, he began rummaging around for the supplies necessary to treat her wounds. He almost slammed them down onto the table beside the bed as he stepped over to her side.
"You're bleeding," he said shortly. "Take off your shirt, I need to see your back."
Her shoulders moved but she shook her head. "I can't."
"Why not?" he demanded.
"Hurts," she mumbled.
"Rangers - real rangers - can deal with pain," he said impatiently, privately glad that she was in pain. "Hurry up."
Her arms moved slowly, and she managed to shrug off her yellow sweater, but made no move to remove the black tank top she was wearing underneath. Upon taking a closer look at her back, Andros bit his lip guiltily.
"Your shoulder's probably dislocated," he said abruptly, now wishing dearly that he'd kept his mouth shut earlier. "And there's some chunks of gravel underneath your skin... I need to get your shirt off. Can you raise your arms?"
"I think so," she muttered, and it was only then that he realized that she'd been biting her lip against the pain. "I mean, maybe."
"Try," he said softly, almost gently.
With an effort, she managed to raise her right arm. He saw tears shoot into her eyes as she attempted to move her left and sighed, thinking that he should have offered her a painkiller.
"Could you... turn around?"
"What?" Andros looked at her, startled. Her words took a moment to register. "Oh."
It was with some reluctance that he turned his back to her, not particularly because he wanted to see her half-naked, but because he was quite aware of how uncomfortable it would make her if he were to turn and stare. As horrible as he knew it was, half of him just wanted to hurt her, humiliate her, watch her suffer, for no better reason than the fact that she wore the color yellow.
She's not Kadri, he reminded himself sternly. Just because she wears yellow... If this was Zeah, you wouldn't want to hurt her.
But she's not Zeah, either, he thought, swallowing hard to force away the lump rapidly forming in his throat. Zeah's gone. Zeah's dead. She's not Zeah.
And she's not Kadri, either.
"You can look now."
Andros turned, now feeling quite guilty. She was hunched forward over her knees now. Her right arm hugged her legs to her chest as her left arm hung limply by her side. The expression on her face told him clearly that not only was she in a great deal of pain, she knew exactly how vulnerable she was.
He stepped behind her again, unable to keep himself from wincing as he saw her bare back. From the small of her back all the way up to her neck, her skin was a mess of scratches, cuts, and bruises. Small bits of rock had worked their way under her skin and he sighed, knowing that they were going to be difficult to work out again.
"What's your name?" she asked suddenly, flinching as he laid a finger across her skin.
"My name?" he repeated, startled.
"Yeah," she said, inhaling sharply as he picked at the small bits of gravel, perhaps not as carefully as he should. "You do have one, don't you?"
"Of course I do."
"What is it?" she asked, sounding almost amused now.
"Andros," he muttered. "Happy now?"
"Andros," she repeated. "That's a cool name... I'm Ashley."
Andros said nothing and simply concentrated on what he was doing, hoping that she would fall silent and let him alone. He should have known that she wouldn't.
"Are you a ranger, too?"
His hands had clenched into fists before he could stop himself. Ashley cried out and he jumped, wincing again as he saw the marks his fingernails had made. An apology formed on the tip of his tongue, but it was gone as quickly as it came and he sighed, reaching for the warm water.
"No," he said evenly, unable to contain the bitterness of his tone. "I'm not a ranger."
"You're not?"
"No," he said. His tone was still even, but forceful enough that he hoped she would abandon the topic.
"Were you a ranger?"
Andros grit his teeth, his hands suddenly trembling. "That," he said, "is none of your business."
"I'm sorry," Ashley said softly, inhaling sharply as Andros began to wash the blood off of her back. "I didn't mean to..."
"Then you shouldn't have said anything," he snapped at her, feeling some measure of satisfaction at the opportunity to finally vent out some of his anger.
"I'm sorry," she said again. Her voice was little more than a whisper now. "I won't say anymore."
It was then that he realized that she'd only been talking to distract herself from the pain. He hadn't even tried to be gentle with her, and he didn't doubt that he'd hurt her. He'd wanted to hurt her... so why was he suddenly feeling sick to his stomach?
You didn't have to hurt her, he thought desperately, biting down hard on his lower lip. She's not Kadri. She doesn't deserve this...
Andros sighed heavily and tried to finish quickly. As he reached for the bandages, he wondered why his heart was aching so badly.
