So, I'm back. Miss me? I know, I haven't either. Pity. And I've finally changed the status on this fic to In Progress! Why? Because I'm stupid, that's why. Hah.

Small anecdote: So, this chapter was written before I saw the episode Face to Face. There's a reference in here to the Sonic Streaker (Why can't they just call it the Jet? So much easier) before it's used in Ultimate Daibouken-Drivemax-Whatever. The timeline of this chapter, as compared to the series would be in between Lights, Camera, DAX and Face to Face. This chapter is also an (almost) immediate continuation from the last chapter.

This chapter ends in a kinda-sorta cliffhanger, but don't worry about me abandoning this fic and never finishing it; I've already got the next chapter written. Actually, I wrote the next chapter before I wrote this one, but I felt it needed something in-between to set it up a bit more. So this is what you get. This chapter's short (for my standards), but don't you worry, the next one's a whopper!

Speaking of which, I'd just like to know, which would you prefer: long chapters or short? The short ones might be out a little faster, but they might be a little rushed. I personally prefer long chapters, but I know some people are different. So…just gotta know.

Reviews are always appreciated!

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"If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance." – Samuel Johnson

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Daily Misgivings

She was warm.

It was the first thought on Rose's mind as she woke up from her peaceful slumber. She kept still for a number of minutes, resting in the quiet comfort of the early morning. The heat of the blankets wrapped itself around her like a bubble and extended itself to the body she was contentedly wrapped around, keeping her cozy. The almost inaudible lub-dub of Mack's heartbeat underneath her ear pulled her into a comfortable lull that she had no intention of leaving.

She felt Mack shift his weight under her, and she wrapped her arms around his torso to keep him still. He was lying flat on his back and most of her upper body was lying over his, with both of their legs lying in a tangle. She was comfortably nestled into his side, holding him close to her and he doing the same.

In the haze of morning the minutes floated by like hours, so it seemed like much later when Rose finally lifted her head up from the red ranger's chest to look at the clock on the nightstand.

It was early yet, she noted. The rangers started their morning training at seven, and it was only five-thirty in the morning. She groaned, wishing she had more time to sleep. Mack had woken her up in the middle of the night again, and they had spent the earliest hours of the morning talking about any random topic that came to their minds.

While she had enjoyed talking to him at the time, she was almost regretting the decision now. The both of them were going to be in bad moods for the rest of the day, especially her. She didn't function well at all on a lack of sleep.

Despite her disparaging thoughts on the loss of a good night's rest, she couldn't help but smile. Talking with Mack, even about silly, menial things, was always worth her time. Though they hadn't talked at all about the semi-relationship they had gotten themselves into, and she had kind of wished they did.

It had been a few weeks since their late-night talk about the relationship they shared, and for some reason they were both too afraid to bring it up again. They had come to some sort of standstill point, and it was driving her crazy.

Rose sighed and tuned slightly, crossing her arms atop his chest and laying her chin on top of them. She stared into the red ranger's face, and gave a little smile, thinking of how soft his features looked when he was sleeping. But her smile turned into a small frown.

The two of them were way past the halfway point of starting a relationship, and they both knew it. They were sneaking into the other's rooms in the middle of the night, finding stupid excuses to hug each other around the other rangers, sending each other sly looks full of half-spoken meanings, and plenty of other things besides.

She was truly, honestly scared of the way things were going.

She wasn't used to relationships. All of the closeness she had shared with others before joining the rangers had been short flings; something to get her mind off her work. Like she had explained countless times to countless people before, she never really had much time for anything else but schoolwork as she was growing up. She loved to learn; it was her passion. But she couldn't help but feel like she was missing out on some of the finer points in life.

She remembered once, when she was only fourteen years old, studying late for an advanced college Physics course. She fell asleep crying, wondering why in all the world she was pushing herself so hard. If there was one bad thing to say about her, it was that she was a meticulous perfectionist to a fault. So much so that she got lost in herself sometimes; she worked too hard for too long. She had her share of breakdowns. They were nothing too serious, not at all, but after enduring so much stress, it was inevitable that she would eventually burn out.

Mack was her reprieve from all of it. Being a ranger had been one of the most stressful things she could have possibly chosen to do, and he helped her to wind down at the end of every day. It was easy, so easy, to hold onto him for dear life and let all of her worries melt away. The red ranger exuded a sense of quiet comfort that she couldn't help but be drawn to.

…she didn't know what to make of their relationship.

Did she love him?

Possibly. She had read all about the elusive feeling: papers, psychology journals, cheesy romance novels, whatever she could get her hands on. Yet, she had no personal experience to base her emotions off of. She had crushes when she was younger, but this… the feeling she got when she was with Mack completely overrode anything she had gone through before.

It terrified her.

And it made her feel inadequate, something she wasn't used to feeling. She was always second guessing herself nowadays, and that was definitely something she didn't normally do. Mack had turned her whole world upside down with a glance, and she couldn't make heads or tails of it.

She sometimes even found herself comparing her looks with Ronny's, which, looking back on it, seemed so ridiculous, but she still couldn't help it. She was much shorter than the yellow ranger and, she thought, not nearly as attractive, though Mack had told her otherwise thousands of times before. She wasn't used to thinking this way, and frankly, she didn't know what to make of it.

One other thing she felt: guilt. There was so much for her to do. Research, zord modulation… there were plenty of things in and around the mansion to keep her occupied. But her thoughts, no matter where she was, always moved back to the ranger she was currently laying on. The guilt ate away at her, driving her mad.

She didn't want to disappoint the team, or their mentor. She knew Andrew Hartford had set up strict rules against couples in the house, and she couldn't imagine what sort of trouble she and Mack would be in if they were caught. Could they really work out being together? She hated second guessing herself, and the thought of losing Mack's constant affection was heartbreaking, but would she have to put away the thought of a relationship with him altogether?

She knew she had a duty to do. A world to save. A universe to protect. The people on this planet were more important than her relationship with Mack. She had millions of people to safeguard. She couldn't waste her time hanging over some guy, right?

'A wonderfully handsome looking guy…' Rose shook her head, causing the ranger under her to stir. A pair of groggy blue eyes found hers, and his disheveled appearance caused her frown to lift against her will.

"Rose?"

She closed her eyes. "Hmm?"

He was quiet as he lifted a hand and ran it through her hair. She finally opened her eyes, and the intensity in them caused him to frown slightly in concern. "Rose? You okay?"

Her smile, though small, was genuine. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just thinking about…stuff." God, she didn't want to give this up. She lived for moments like these.

Her words didn't settle his worry. "You sure?"

Rose looked into his eyes, at the concern resting in them, and couldn't help but let her smile grow larger. She would think about her problems later; he was all that mattered right now. "Really, I am," She turned to rest her cheek across her folded arms, hair falling into her eyes, "Promise."

"Good." He sent her a smirk, and suddenly rolled sideways towards the wall so she was pinned her underneath him. He laughed. She rolled her eyes before relaxing, sighing at the feel of his weight covering her. He nestled his head in the crook of her shoulder, lightly kissing her neck before closing his eyes and resting.

Rose laid her cheek against his, drawing comfort from the close contact. He let out a sigh that came out as more of a purr, and her tinkling laughter echoed through the room.

Eventually she looked up at the clock, and found that almost an hour had gone by since she had woken. She groaned, once again reminded of the sleep she had lost the night before. Mack, shook out of a sleepy reverie by her groan, lifted his head up to look at Rose, eyebrows furrowed. "Rose…?"

She grinned at him in reassurance. "I'm going to have to get back to my room soon. Spencer will be making the rounds to wake us all up, and I'll need to be there when he knocks."

"Or you could just…not be."

Rose laughed again and shook her head. "C'mon Mack. Really, now."

Mack leaned himself up on his elbows to better look at the pink ranger under him. He smiled. "Y'know, Rose…I honestly don't think Spencer would make a big deal out of all of this." He waved an arm in the air in emphasis.

She caught his hand and pulled it back down to the bed, but didn't let go if it. "Still, it's just not proper. We're not Ronny and Will for God's sakes."

Mack let out an amused puff of air. "Yeah, I'd like to think that we had a little bit more tact than that."

She shook her head, laughing. "Still," she pushed on his chest and made her way into a sitting position, causing Mack to roll off to the other side of the bed, "I should get back. It's no fun keeping a secret when there's no secret to keep."

He smiled and grabbed her hand, kissing her knuckles. "I'll see you downstairs, then."

She got up, a smile on her face. "Of course." Rose made her way out of the room, turning to smile at him one last time before heading out the door and back to her own bedroom.

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It was mid-afternoon, and she was with Spencer in the zord bay, making last-minute adjustments on an auxiliary zord. Rose looked up from the endless lines of code littering her laptop screen to glance up at Spencer. "So, what exactly are we going to do with this thing?"

The older man smiled at her and winked. "Oh, you'll see. It'll be very exciting when it's done." He put down a screwdriver and backed away from the wing of the vehicle to inspect his handy work. "We've got a few more touch-ups to do before it's fully up and running, but when it's done it should be a great help to all of you."

Rose looked up at him, smirking. "It combines with DriveMax and the rest of the auxiliary zords, doesn't it?"

Spencer gave a small laugh and turned in her direction. "One step ahead of the game, as usual." He walked over to a toolbox and started rummaging through it, "I shouldn't be so surprised."

He abandoned the toolbox to walk behind the zord and she heard more clanging. "Anyway, you're right. It does combine."

Rose looked amused as he walked to yet another tool box near the entrance of the bay. "But that's a ten-zord combination. Don't you think that's overkill?" she paused for a second to think, "Has that even been done before?"

"Not that I can remember off of the top of my head, no. But who knows? Mr. Hartford is- Aha!"

He held up the tool he had been looking for triumphantly, and walked back over to the jet-like zord, smiling. "As I was saying, Andrew is quite the overachiever. 'Go big or go home', as he likes to say."

Rose laughed, a wide grin on her face. "That just means more work for you, huh Spencer?"

He raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes. "Quite."

She laughed and stood up, closing the lid to her laptop and setting it gently on the ground in the process. She walked towards him and put a hand on his shoulder in sympathy. "Right. Anyways, I think I'm going to head upstairs for lunch. You want anything?"

Spencer shook his head. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'll be just fine, I assure you."

"Okay then, see you later!"

He nodded his head goodbye as she made her way out of the zord bay. She sat through the elevator ride quietly, but when the doors opened, her ears were met with a cacophony of sound. She inched her way closer to the command center to try and see what was going on.

A loud voice boomed through the underground, and it surprised her. She narrowed her eyebrows in confusion. 'Mr. Hartford? But why would he be so angry?' she thought absently.

She moved closer to the entrance of the command center, but stopped dead when she heard Will's voice. "It's not fair and you know it! What the hell is your problem?"

Ronny's voice trailed his. "Guys, really, can't we just talk this all out?"

Rose tried to get closer to the door, absurdly interested in the argument. What could possibly make Will so angry that he would yell at their mentor?

She heard Andrew reply, his voice getting louder every second. Ronny's plea for peace was ignored. "My problem, Will? I'm not the one with the problem here! I specifically told you both that no relationships were allowed within the team, under any circumstances!"

"So? It's a stupid rule in the first place! What's the harm in a little bit of fun?"

Andrew's voice was incredulous, "Rules are put in place for a reason, Will, and you disrespected this team by breaking them! …and fun? You're talking about fun? You're a Power Ranger! People's lives depend on you, and all you can think about is messing around?!"

The voices continued to run through her ears, but she lost track of them. The world rushed around her, and she stood still, unable to move. Completely shell-shocked.

Her world came crashing down around her.

The guilt about her relationship with Mack hit her full force, ad she had to lean against the wall to keep from falling down.

Everything she was afraid of happening: the people she could hurt and the lives she would waste… she realized, with a shocking clarity, that those events could actually come true. She saw herself in there with Mack, arguing with his father. Rose imagined herself in Ronny's shoes, trying to be the peacemaker, but failing miserably. She could easily picture the look in Mack's bright blue eyes as he went up against his father, determined to the core.

It would be her fault. She would be pitting the son against his father, tearing a hole in an already weak relationship. She couldn't do that to him.

She wouldn't.

Mack deserved better than her. Rose had no idea what had happened to his mother, but Andrew was all of the family he had left. She couldn't tear him away from his family, from his duty. And what about the people they were all trying to protect? Didn't they deserve better? She wasn't going to risk their lives. She had to end her relationship with Mack. It was the right thing to do.

…but then why did it feel like her heart was breaking?

She slid down the wall, breathing heavily. Tears shone her eyes, yet to fall, as she sought to regain control over her emotions. She heard footsteps moving toward her, and her heart began to beat wildly, afraid they would catch her in the hallway. She managed to turn herself invisible right before Ronny made her way out of the command centre.

The yellow ranger looked sad, but most of all she looked defeated. It broke Rose's heart to see the proud girl reduced to something so subdued. A tear rolled down Ronny's cheek, and Rose felt like crying with her. She empathized with the girl; both of their relationships were doomed for failure, and they couldn't do a damned thing about it.

She saw the yellow clad girl move towards the elevator, probably looking to find solace in the emptiness of the hollow zord bay. She scrunched her eyes together, disheartened, knowing that the girl would only find Spencer and more questions waiting for her when she arrived.

Rose staggered to her feet. The argument in the other room was dwindling, and she knew that Will would soon be leaving. Spencer would also, no doubt, be coming up to see what had happened to make Ronny so upset. She didn't want to run into either of them.

Tears ran down her face as she made her way up the stairs into the main house. She didn't want to do this, but she didn't have a choice.

Her resolve hardening, she walked into the living room and wiped the tears from her face. Her voice was choked, but she knew she had to do it, for the betterment of the world and for the team.

It was time to end things with Mack.