11

"I think she may be waking up soon."

"How can you be so sure?"

"She's responded well to any and all of the tests we've given. Eyes dilate and contract with light, there isn't any sign of a coma, she can wake up. She just needs to do it on her own time. But trauma like this…it's not something she's going to come back from so easily."

"Such a pretty girl, it's a shame what happened."

"I'm not talking about her face, I'm talking about everything else. These kids…man, they're just kids. They're too young to be coming into the hospital like this. They're too young to be drinking and throwing their lives away like this. Why would she do something like that."

"Peer pressure. All the same things we were dealing with, they're dealing with too. Maybe on a bigger scale. They worry so much about being cool and having the same interests, about being the same in everything they do. They can't be individuals anymore. They all have to be the same person, like they learn everything with osmosis or something."

"Not these kids."

"You've heard of them?"

"Oh, they're in the news all the time. That Cranston kid, I know their parents. Well known professors. It's their place up there that they were staying at. Partying at. And the rest of these guys, they're always doing good. I see them in the newspaper and the news all the time."

"Maybe they were using the night to blow off some steam."

"There are other ways to do that."

"You sound like you're taking it personally."

"I always do when I see kids this young make stupid decisions that'll ruin their lives. It's such a shame. She's so pretty."

Silence stretched through the room.

The doctors left.

Kimberly's eyelids fluttered. The doctors were wrong. She wasn't just waking up. She'd been awake. Time passed at such odd intervals for her. One moment, she would think she'd been asleep for hours, or even years, and only a few minutes had passed. One minute she was drinking and hanging out with her friends, and the next thing she knew, she was trying to crawl her way out of an overturned car and screaming hysterically, finding herself pinned in place.

Screaming because she couldn't find her friends. Screamed because no one was responding to her. Screaming because of the pain. The pain was unable to bear. It's what continued to knock her out. The pain that exploded in her head every time she moved. That knocked her out every few seconds before she came to and had to face what happened all over again.

The panic struck her, the reality of how painful it truly was. She'd been hurt before, before she had her powers. She'd been particularly bullied by Sharkie and had been shoved into lockers and down the stairs. It was before she had truly learned to stick up for herself. She was "tiny but mighty" as her mom said, and once she figured that out, she fought back against Sharkie, using her size and lithe agility to get away from her. Then, of course, there were the times she'd injured herself with her numerous gymnastics practices and competitions. She'd pulled muscles, torn ligaments, broken bones, popped her shoulders and hips out of place, stubbed toes, bruised numerous parts of her body and worked herself to exhaustion all for a sport she loved with all her heart.

That didn't come close to the pain of being a ranger.

When being a ranger, the pain that came to her was more emotional. It was painful how angry and worried she was when they didn't beat a monster the first time. It was painful how heart rendering it was that they had to see their home continuously get destroyed by the large monsters and by their own Megazord day by day. Painful to see those that evacuated to return to their jobs and homes damaged from everything they'd done. Heart wrenching to see the faces of those that had been injured or had family members injured from the attacks.

That was the point, wasn't it? To save their city, sacrifices had to be made.

But it still hurt.

Kimberly opened her eyes and looked around the darkened hospital room. No roommate. Figures. But her mother…why wasn't her mother there? Surely, she'd found a way to get to her only daughter, to see her. To fight tooth and nail. Or was she just too busy with her new boyfriend, as she always seemed to be? It wasn't that Kimberly didn't like him but…

That wasn't the point. She tried to sit up, tried to move, then winced, feeling the lightning bolt of pain hit her. Kimberly groaned quietly, whimpered. Saw flashes of what'd happened. Saw the headlights that swamped over them, saw the absolute terror on Tommy's face, saw the shards of glass jolting toward her in slow motion before everything went black.

Kimberly brought hand up to her forehead, wincing when it struck a stitch filled…something. Felt the worse pain she'd ever experienced at her nose and around her eyes. Felt it with a swell of her chest as she breathed, making her slam her eyes shut and a whimper of pain to escape her lips. She wished Tommy was there, able to hold her hand and let her know everything was going to be okay. Another whimper hit her, her mind shifting back to her boyfriend and her friends.

But she couldn't cry, not yet. Not until…

She had to see.

Kimberly twisted her head aside, looking for any reflective surface, and found a tray sitting next to her bed. Whether it was a tray that held medical instruments or food she was supposed to have, she wasn't sure. But it was enough.

With a shaking hand, Kimberly took a deep breath and moved the tray closer to her body. She rested it in her lap, her shaking fingers making it wiggle and jump around, threatening to clatter to the floor. She took in a deep breath to steady herself. To calm her nerves. She's gone up against some of the fiercest monsters and aliens and villains and was able to do it with a brave face and feeling the most confident she'd ever had.

Why was it that, looking in a mirror, something she did on a daily basis, was scaring her so badly?

Because of the reality of what happened. And that reality smacked her in the face when she finally allowed herself to bring up the tray and steady it in the dim light, angled it so that she was able to look at her reflection.

The second she looked at herself, taking in the messy hair that'd been thrown back into a bun, bangs smoothed back from her forehead, a stitched gash across her forehead, a black eye, a bruised nose, a split lip, tiny cuts in her face where—she thought—glass had pockmarked her skin, a neck brace, and whatever else was hidden beneath her hospital gown and the hospital blankets, Kimberly cried.

But it wasn't because of the pain, despite the pain that shot through her ribs every time she took in a breath or even moved a fraction of an inch. And it wasn't because of how hideous she thought the hospital gown was and felt there was a lot that could be done to make it look more fabulous. (Though a tiny, tiny part of her thought she could probably make some sort of comment to the hospital staff).

And it wasn't because she felt she looked ugly, that wasn't why she was crying.

No, she was crying because the reality of everything was hitting her. The reality of her friends' lives in danger. The reality that, even with the fantastic powers they were given to help save their city, their Earth, and everyone in it…they were still human.

They made mistakes.

And they paid for it.

A/N: I originally intended for this chapter to be put up yesterday, but I unexpectedly got called into work. But I hope you enjoy it and I'll definitely have it updated sooner than I have been as of late.

~Av