Disclaimer: I still don't own the Power Rangers.
Chapter 15
Andros studied his forearm critically. There wasn't a scar to be seen, not even so much as a scratch. Yet only two hours ago, Darkonda's blade had sliced through his skin and as quickly as the Power healed, there should have been a deep wound right there.Zhane had said that Astronema had healed him, but his friend had been so distracted then that Andros hadn't paid much attention to anything that Zhane had said. Where was Zhane anyway?
He sighed and turned off the shower. The steady stream of warm water dried into a trickle and then an occasional drip, and Andros reached for his towel. He dried off quickly and dressed slowly, not having a clue what he was supposed to say to the sister he hadn't seen since he had been six years old.
Shrugging on his jacket, Andros headed for the engine room. TJ had told him that they were holding Astronema there, and Zhane had volunteered to stand guard over her. That had surprised him, but not nearly as much as hearing that Ashley was there with him.
He paused outside the door and knocked quietly. Zhane was the one who let him in, and Andros stepped inside to see Ashley and Astronema--Karone?--deep in conversation. He couldn't hear a word of what they were saying and cast a curious look towards Zhane, who shrugged.
"Ash said she wanted to talk to her alone," he explained in a low voice. "I don't have a clue what they're saying."
"You never have a clue," Andros couldn't resist murmuring, and bit his lip uncertainly.
Ashley noticed him a moment later, and he saw her break off whatever she'd been saying to his sister. Andros felt a guilty pang as he saw the sling that supported one arm, but she climbed to her feet easily and laid her good hand on his shoulder reassuringly.
"Are you all right?" she asked quietly.
He nodded. "Are you?"
"Compound fracture," Zhane answered for her. "She's going to bed now, aren't you, Ash?"
Andros winced, suppressing a smile when Ashley shot a murderous glare at Zhane. That alone was enough to convince him that she would be fine.
"You need the rest," he told her, timidly giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. "You'll heal faster in your sleep."
"I know, I know." Ashley rolled her eyes, and lightly kissed his cheek. "I'm going. Good luck," she added quietly. "We'll leave you two alone."
He smiled tightly in thanks, swallowing hard as he took a step towards Astronema. She met his eyes calmly, toying idly with her long blue hair. Andros let out a deep breath and slid down to sit on the floor across from her, drawing his knees up to his chest as he wracked his brain for something to say to her.
"Your girlfriend doesn't trust me," Astronema murmured into the silence. Andros looked at her in surprise and she smiled faintly. "It's cute. But I wonder--do you trust me?"
"If you are who you say you are," he answered slowly, "then I do."
Astronema considered that for a few moments, rolling strands of hair between the thumb and forefinger of one hand. "I haven't said anything to my identity one way or the other. You're the one convinced that I am your sister."
Andros had no choice but to admit that she was right; he had arrived at the conclusion that she was Karone on his own, with nothing but her locket to support him. He bit his lip uneasily, nervously considering that he might have been wrong all along. What if she wasn't Karone?
"You don't." She watched him calmly for a few moments longer. "I suppose that's smart of you."
"Astronema... Karone..." Andros hesitated over her name, and looked down at his hands for a moment. "Are you Karone?"
"Would you believe me if I said I didn't know?"
"I--I don't know." He watched her carefully, searching for any sign that she was lying. He saw none.
"Then it doesn't matter, does it," she said quietly.
"How can you say that?"
"Easily." She looked at him, bored, and added, "Ecliptor tells me you killed my brother. I have more reason to believe him."
"How could I have killed your brother?" he demanded. "If we're not the same age, we're close enough."
"Children can kill."
"I've never killed anyone," Andros insisted. "Ever."
"Oh?" She arched an eyebrow at him. "Those creatures all blew themselves up, did they?"
"I--" He frowned at her as he considered that. "Those were monsters."
"You see in black and white," she observed. "Who are you to say that they weren't anything more?"
"They were attacking my home. I wasn't going to stand there and let them."
"Hmm." Astronema regarded him critically. "It was KO-35 that you were born."
Andros nodded his head slowly. "My sister and I both."
"You were the firstborn?" she inquired, and he looked up hopefully. Only curiosity shone in her eyes, and he sighed.
"By six minutes, yes."
"Twins?" Surprise flickered briefly across her face, and her eyes lowered. "Me too," she told him quietly.
Andros hugged his legs and rested his chin on his knees. "Can you remember me?" he asked her, not daring to let himself hope this time. "Our parents? Anything?"
"I don't have many memories of my childhood," Astronema said stiffly, and he nodded.
"Neither do I. But sometimes it seems like too many," he admitted softly. Taking a deep breath, he told her, "After Darkonda gave you to Ecliptor, he sold me to slave traders."
She nodded in acknowledgment of his words, considering that. "How much were you worth?" she asked finally, and he flinched.
Andros lowered his eyes and let out a sigh, determined to answer the question. Anything to make her trust him. "In universal currency?"
"Whatever."
He squeezed his eyes shut, furious that he still felt the hurt. "One hundred."
Her eyes widened at that. "A drink on Onyx costs fifty."
"I know that," he growled, his nails digging into his palms. "Darkonda wanted two thousand. Baldric told him that I wouldn't last a year, and if he thought I was worth two thousand then he should have waited until the bruises healed."
Something nearly sympathetic touched her expression. Andros didn't dare let himself hope that it was a sign of anything at all. "You were beaten that badly?"
Andros clenched his jaw and kept his answer quick. "Yes."
"If it's any consolation, you'd be worth millions now."
"Not really."
"I didn't think so." Astronema rearranged herself more comfortably. "What happened after he sold you?"
"I..." He took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he let it out.
"You tell me yours and I'll tell you mine," she offered.
"I..." Trapped, he nodded his head reluctantly. If it would make her trust him, what choice did he have? "Okay."
Andros bit his lip, his chin pillowed on his knees as for the first time in years, he allowed himself to remember. Astronema sat silently, hands in her lap as she waited patiently. Taking another breath to compose himself, Andros started talking.
"A new one, eh?" The man stared down at him with scary eyes, the kind of face his dad usually made when he did something wrong. Andros tried to back up when the man caught him by the chin, not knowing what he was in trouble for.
"I--"
He jumped when the man slapped him full across the face, first more scared than hurt. He felt the pain a second later, a furious stinging that burned his right cheek, and his eyes filled with tears that rolled down his cheeks as he sniffled.
"Quiet," he was ordered. "No one wants to hear you."
Andros scrubbed at his eyes with one hand, rubbing his sore cheek with the other. The man took both his hands and held his wrists over his head, twisting them harshly until Andros screamed.
"Take off your shirt."
His hands were released, and Andros tried to get away. He backed up into a table, gulping in fear when he heard something clatter to the floor behind him. The man took another step towards him, furiously angry.
"Take off your shirt or the mark goes on your cheek instead. You have ten seconds to make up your mind."
Andros stared at the floor dully before lifting his eyes to Astronema's. "Then he branded me," he finished quietly. "Your turn.""I meant it when I said I didn't remember much," she said. "My earliest memories are of Ecliptor telling me that you killed my family."
"Oh." He didn't know how else to answer that. Andros settled back and tried to get comfortable. He already knew this wasn't going to be a pleasant conversation.
TJ sat in Cassie's chair on the Bridge, doing nothing of any particular importance. Carlos had volunteered for the internal repairs, and Cassie and Zhane had tackled the external damage. Ashley was ordered to rest, Andros was with his sister, and who knew where Arietis was. That left him sitting on the Bridge informing the others of their progress, which Deca could have done herself in minutes had she been fully functional.
With a sigh, he poked at the console in front of him. The display read the shields nearly at full, and he lifted his communicator to tell Zhane. Cassie answered instead.
"Oh, hey Teej," she said wearily. "Please say that we're almost done."
"No worries," he replied with a smile. "Shields are ninety percent and Megalasers are eighty-five."
"Zhane's taking care of the Megalasers, I'll tell him," she told him, and paused. "Where's everyone else?"
"Ash is getting some sleep, Andros is with Astronema, Carlos is around here somewhere, and I don't have a clue where the Phantom is," he said after some thought. "Why?"
"I just wanted to know what you thought," Cassie said. "Astronema. Are we safe with her around?"
"I wish I knew, Cass," he sighed. "Even if she really is Andros's sister, she's been raised to fight Rangers." She could kill us right under our noses...
"You think there's no good left in her?"
"I don't know." TJ sighed and scratched the back of his head. "I don't think Andros would bring her here if she wasn't, but... he didn't really bring her here."
"Yeah." Cassie was silent for a few moments, and then he heard her sigh. "I should get back to work."
"Me too," he agreed, and cut the connection. It was back to staring mindlessly at the consoles, then.
Which was entirely preferable to having company, he decided as the Phantom Ranger strolled onto the Bridge. "Hello."
TJ didn't look up. "Hi."
"I am looking for Cassie," Arietis spoke up after a few moments of awkward silence. "Do you know where I could find her?"
"She's working," TJ said shortly. "You can say goodbye to her later."
The Phantom Ranger regarded him in confusion. "I... am not leaving."
TJ finally looked up. "You're not?"
"It is for the best if I remain with your crew," Arietis explained. "At least for now."
"No," TJ said, rather more harshly than he'd intended. "You can't keep leaving her like this."
"Am I interrupting anything?"
They both fell silent as Andros stepped onto the Bridge, his face tired. TJ shook his head. "No, of course not," he answered. "We're done talking, did you need something?"
"I..." The Red Ranger sighed wearily. "You won't like this idea much, but it's necessary."
"Let's hear it then." TJ folded his arms as he waited for Andros to speak. Ever since the Onyx incident, the Red Ranger had been almost friendly, but his expression now was guarded.
"She has to stay here." There was no question who she was, and TJ's immediate reaction must have been his expression, for Andros quickly added, "You can have her under supervision all you want, but she has to stay, and we can't keep her locked up in the engine room forever."
TJ never understood why they were keeping her in the engine room to begin with. That was possibly the worst place on the entire ship to hold prisoners.
"No," he agreed reluctantly. "I guess we can't."
"It is an impractical solution," Arietis concurred. "However... are you sure you're willing to give Astronema free reign on the Megaship?"
And TJ had once thought they'd never agree on anything. Andros glared at them both. "She's my sister."
Arietis nodded slowly, and sighed. "For all our sakes, I hope that you're right."
Ashley woke slowly, groggy from whatever it was that had been in that liquid Cassie had force-fed her. She wasn't complaining--she'd rather be sleepy than feel her arm right about now. None of them had let her look for herself, which had really been more irritating than anything else, but she knew that it had been a nasty break.
Sighing, she rolled over onto her back and stretched out her legs. "How long have I been asleep for?"
"Four hours and two minutes," Deca's calm voice replied instantly. "In Angel Grove, it would be seven fifty-four in the evening."
"Thanks." Ashley covered her mouth with her good hand to stifle a yawn. "What's our ETA back to Earth?"
"Approximately ten hours."
"Oh." Ashley rubbed her forehead with another sigh. She rolled back onto her side and groaned. Her head was starting to pound. "Can you send a signal through to Earth?" she wanted to know. "I need to tell someone where I am."
"I cannot guarantee the stability of the connection," Deca warned. "However, I can transmit a signal."
"So I can call my house somehow?"
"I can project the comm signal from your communicator in such a way," Deca offered, and Ashley smiled.
"That'd be great," she yawned, and flipped open her morpher. "Thanks."
A few seconds later, she was hearing her house phone ring through her communicator. Like a speakerphone, she thought, amused, and waited. Her brother's voice floated back to her a moment later, and Ashley let out a breath in relief.
"Hey Jeff." Ashley bit her lip hesitantly. "I, um... well, I'm fine so don't worry about me. I won't be back until tomorrow, though."
"Oh." Her brother mulled that over for a few moments. "Is this one of those times when I shouldn't ask?"
"Probably," Ashley admitted. "Tell Mom I'm all right, okay?"
"Sure thing, Ash," he promised. "And you stay safe."
She stared at her morpher through the darkness for a long time. Her family knew, and she couldn't imagine going through this having to lie to them, but sometime... it was still too much. Sometimes, she just wanted to be... well, normal again.
A quiet knock on her door interrupted her thoughts, and Ashley sat up. "Come in," she called.
To her surprise, it was Andros that stepped into her room. "I wanted to see how you were doing," he explained, hovering near her doorway. "Is your arm all right?"
"I can't feel it at all," she told him. "Come in for awhile. Sit down."
"You should be resting," he insisted, but he did take a few more steps into the room. She saw his eyes flick between her bed and the chair beside her desk. Ashley wasn't surprised when he went for the chair.
"And how are you?" she questioned him gently. "How is she?"
"I'm fine," he said, pushing the chair a little closer to her before he sat. "I think... She has to be Karone. She has to be."
"I hope that she is," Ashley said quietly. "But she doesn't have to be."
"Ecliptor's spent her entire life telling her that I've killed her family," he argued back bitterly. "I can hardly believe that she's here if she thinks everything he's told her is true..."
"What did he tell her?" she asked tentatively.
"I slaughtered her family as a child," he said. "I've been hunting her ever since. When I find her, I'll torture her to death. I make my living as an assassin, among other things."
"And yet you're one of the good guys?"
"So it seems." Andros sighed and shook his head. "I don't know if she believes me."
"Just give her some time," she said quietly. "I know it's probably not what you want to hear, but it's going to take some time for her to adjust."
"Oh, I know." He ran a hand through his hair as his shoulders slumped slightly. "I want to give her limited access to the ship. I know what you're thinking," he added quickly. "I got the same reaction from TJ at first, but we can't leave her in the engine room for the next three or four days."
"True." Ashley thought for a moment. "I guess that's okay..."
"She won't be able to enter the Bridge or anywhere else alone," he told her unhappily. "I'll find a room for her, and she can access the Simudeck, Glider bay, and Observatory."
"I'll trust you on this," she said finally. "I hope you're right about her, Andros."
"Me too," he said quietly. "You should probably get some more sleep, Ash."
"I should probably get up and do some homework," she said with a grimace. "I've got a test Monday, and it's bad enough that I wasn't there today."
"You shouldn't have had to miss school for this," he apologized. "We had no choice this time."
"It's all right. Once in awhile," she amended. "Don't worry about it."
He smiled at her a little. "Do you need any help? I mean, your arm..." His voice trailed off, and she nodded.
"Actually, that'd be great." She smiled at him, biting her lip when he blushed faintly. "You know physics, right?"
He looked surprised that she'd even ask. "Of course I do."
"Good. Because I don't, and I'm supposed to." Ashley pointed to the backpack she'd dumped on her desk. "There's a physics book in there."
He returned to the chair with the book and she shook her head, scooting over and patting the bed next to her. "Come here," she insisted. "I can see better, and you won't be comfortable in that chair."
Andros looked at her, startled, and for a moment she thought he was about to refuse. She looked at him curiously, but he only sighed and nodded before shifting over onto the mattress beside her.
"What is it that you're stuck on?" he wanted to know, offering no explanation for his behavior and Ashley didn't ask for one.
"Well... everything," she admitted sheepishly. "Chem and bio I did great, but this year, I don't know. I just don't get it, and it really doesn't help that morphing breaks just about every known law of nature."
Andros shook his head. "The laws of nature only describe what is," he told her. "They can't be broken."
She looked at him skeptically. "So it's perfectly natural to push a button and have superpowers?"
"Yes," he answered, in total seriousness. "If you happen to be a Ranger."
Ashley smiled and poked his shoulder with her good hand. "Or maybe," she said quietly, "there's some things that science can't explain. Astronema's magic."
"Concentration of energy," he said immediately. "Under certain conditions it can cause a black hole."
She stared at him blankly. "It... can?"
He nodded, glancing back down at the book in his lap. "Should we start at the beginning?"
"Please," she said gratefully. "And if you get tired of me not getting it, then just stop, okay?"
He frowned and shook his head. "I'll stay with you until you understand."
The offer was sincere, and she turned to look at him. Touched, she reached around with her right arm to hug him as best she could, just holding onto him. Andros let her hug him for awhile longer before he pushed her back gently, his mouth opening in explanation.
Ashley shook her head before he could speak, and smiled at him. "Thanks," she said softly. "I guess we should get to work."
A look of relief flashed across his face very briefly as he nodded. Ashley wondered but didn't ask, just opening the book to the first chapter. Andros skimmed it quickly, nodding in comprehension before he proceeded to spend the next two hours patiently explaining to her the different forms of energy.
Author's Note: I'm so sorry this chapter took so long, the next two were just way more fun to write. On the upside, I should be able to update twice more before next week. (Next chapter they finally go on their date.) I hope you like it, please review!
