I can't believe I trudged this thing out. I've been crazy busy, but it's a good thing. I graduate tomorrow! I'm excited! College should be fun; I'm really looking forward to it.
Anyways, I watched Man of Mercury II and Behind the Scenes yesterday. I gotta say... I really like Ronny and Tyzonn. A lot. I still like Ronny and Will because of the Masumi/Natsuki dynamic, but I can't help but like Tyzonn. I don't think I'm going to change couples (it's a little too far in to do anything about it), but I might add in Tyzonn for a little jealousy between Will and Ronny. Or I might not. It all depends, really. As for the way this thing is progressing now… I'm seriously lacking a plot. I know where I want to take it, but I'm still not sure of the overall outline of it. ….but oh well! I'll keep updating anyways, so if this story rambles onward without a plot, I'm sorry. At least I'm having fun with it!
Reviews are appreciated, as always! It's nice to know who actually reads this thing, so leave a message. It makes me happy inside.
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"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." – Albert Camus
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Lunchtime Ramblings
Rose sighed as she walked down the long hallway. The envelope she was carrying seemed strangely heavy in her hand. The outside of it was plain white, and no markings could be seen on the outside of it. Yet, to her, it was as menacing as a dagger.
The pink ranger shook her head, dispelling her strange thoughts. 'It's just a silly piece of paper. It could be nothing!'
She stopped in front of a door in the hallway, a frown marking her features. She desperately wanted to open the letter, but she knew she couldn't; it wasn't hers to read.
She straightened her back and knocked on the yellow-painted wood in front of her. Silence greeted her.
She knocked again, louder.
An exuberant but rushed 'Come in!' met her ears, and she opened the door to see Ronny on her bed, smashing buttons on a game controller in her hands. Rose cracked a smile. Turning towards the television screen, she raised her eyebrows as she watched dozens of multi-colored arrows fly towards the top of the screen.
Rose laughed, momentarily forgetting about the envelope in her hands. "I thought you were supposed to dance to this game!"
Ronny shrugged, her eyes still glued to the screen. Rose leaned against the doorframe and waited for the song to be over before attempting to talk to the occupied girl. The arrows eventually came to a halt, and Ronny threw her arms up into the air in excitement. "I unlocked a new song!"
Rose raised her eyebrows. "But…you used the controller."
Ronny just laughed and shrugged again. "So? It's easier."
"I think the entire point of the game is completely lost on you." Rose deadpanned.
The yellow ranger threw the controller to the ground, a big smile on her face. Her mood was infectious, and Rose soon found herself smiling as well.
Ronny motioned to the folded dance pad that was collecting dust in the corner of the room. "I could use it. I just don't want to."
It was Rose's turn to shrug. "Whatever floats your boat." She paused, and then held up the letter, her smile slightly muted. "I've got this for you."
Ronny nodded and patted her bed, motioning for the other girl to join her. "Who's it from?"
Rose left her spot at the doorframe, leaving the door slightly ajar. She sat down on the bed next to Ronny and handed her the letter. "Hartford. Who else?" She handed to letter over. "He asked me to give it to you."
The yellow ranger shook her head, smile still on her face. It seemed even an ominous letter from their mentor couldn't put her in a bad mood. "He's really getting ridiculous, isn't he?"
Rose spoke, sarcasm eminent in her voice. "Yeah. I guess he's too busy to give it to you in person."
Ronny raised her eyebrows at the girl sitting next to her. "Y'know, he could actually be busy working on something."
Rose looked over to Ronny, confused. "You're defending him, even with all this crazy stuff happening to you and Will?"
Ronny pulled a knee up to her chest and rested her head against the wall behind her. She turned back to Rose and grinned. "He's a good guy at heart, Rose. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt."
Rose shook her head. "I don't understand how you can forgive him all that easily."
Ronny grinned. "You've got it all wrong; I don't forgive him at all. What he's doing is still really stupid." She waved the envelope in the air.
"I don't think I'm seeing where you're coming from."
The yellow ranger cocked her head to the side, thinking of the best way to put her feelings into words. "Well, there's got to be a reason for him to be acting so weird about this, right?"
Rose nodded.
"So… I guess I just want to hear the reason he's being so stubborn before I go and scream at him for being a heartless jerk."
Rose smiled, comprehending Ronny's actions. She pointed to the letter. "So, you going to open it or what?"
Ronny shrugged her shoulders slightly and tore at the white envelope, pulling a single sheet of paper from it. As she read it, Rose looked intently at Ronny's face, attempting to decipher what was written in the letter by reading the yellow ranger's facial expressions. She was morbidly curious about the whole thing.
When the other girl was finally done reading she handed it over to Rose, her face impassive. Rose skimmed through the letter.
Ronny was more amused than anything else. "He wants to see me and Will in the command centre later tonight. He's checking up on us to make sure we're not doing anything stupid."
Rose raised her eyebrows and smirked at Ronny, deciding to joke with her. "Are you?"
The yellow ranger looked slightly confused. "Am I what?"
Rose's smirk grew larger as she teased the girl next to her. "Doing stuff. …with Will."
Ronny just crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, opting not to indulge any information to the pink ranger. Rose took her silence entirely the wrong way.
She laughed outright, and she had to bend over from her laughing. "Is there anything you'd like to tell me, Ronny?"
The yellow ranger shook her head and punched Rose in the arm playfully. "You're a sicko!" She let out a giggle of her own. "You know I'm not doing that kind of stuff with Will. We've got too much saving the world business on our hands to deal with that."
"But making out in the command base is perfectly fine?"
Ronny laughed. "Well, that's something entirely different!"
Rose joined in the laughter. She enjoyed teasing the other girl; they didn't get nearly enough time to just sit around and talk.
Their laughter died down, and Rose was suddenly struck by a thought. "Hey Ronny, you never told me how you and Will got together!"
Ronny smirked. "You really want to know?"
Rose gave her a look that very plainly said duh, and Ronny lifted up the corners of her mouth, smiling. "Well, I had realized that I liked him just after Mack escaped from Flurious and Moltar."
Rose raised her eyebrows. "That long ago? I thought the two of you have only been seeing each other for a week or two."
Ronny let out an amused puff of air and smiled at the girl sitting next to her. "We're just good at keeping secrets, I guess."
Rose gave Ronny a knowing grin. 'I'm getting pretty good at keeping secrets, myself.'
Ronny looked over to the song credits playing on the TV screen, momentarily getting lost in thought. She shook her head and turned towards Rose again. "Anyway, back then I kinda had a thing for Mack, and was freaking out pretty bad when he got kidnapped."
Rose immediately pinned down the spout of jealousy that arose in her chest, but couldn't help but let a frown come to her face. "You liked Mack?"
Ronny laughed a bit and scratched the top of her head, embarrassed. "Back then I did. But when we got back to the mansion that day I confronted him and told him I liked him."
Rose couldn't help but raise her eyebrows at the yellow ranger. "I didn't know about that!"
Ronny smirked at the other girls' dumbfounded expression. "That's because he told me he wasn't interested. After that I just figured he was interested in someone else." She elbowed Rose in the ribs, a teasing expression on her face.
Rose feigned innocence, worried about the topic of conversation they were headed into. "What was that for?"
Ronny rolled her eyes at the pink ranger. "C'mon, Rose," she gave the girl another nudge to the ribs, "I've seen the way he looks at you. He's totally into you!"
On the inside, her heart was racing a mile a minute, but Rose just shrugged and kept up an air of indifference. "Whatever you say, Ronny."
The yellow ranger huffed. "You seriously haven't noticed him staring at you? Really?"
Rose shifted, uneasy with the conversation. She hated lying to her friends. "It's not something I really pick up on, Ronny. I'm not exactly looking for it or anything."
The pink ranger shrugged again. 'Oh, my nose is growing longer by the second…'
Ronny lifted her legs up on the bed and turned to face Rose completely, sitting cross-legged in front of her. By the eager look on her face, Rose knew she wouldn't like what would be coming out of the girls' mouth.
The yellow ranger, on the other hand, was eager for gossip. "So Rose, do you like Mack?"
'And she's finally pulled out the big guns,' Rose thought, but her outward facial expression was still as impassive as always. "Haven't really thought about it, actually."
Ronny shook her head at the girl, exasperated. "C'mon girl, give me something to work with!" she paused to think, "Alright, do you think he's cute?"
Rose couldn't help herself and she smiled slightly, the image of a rain-soaked red ranger coming to mind. She shook her head and tried thinking of a new tactic to get Ronny off her shoulders about Mack. "Yeah, he's not bad looking, I guess."
"You think you'd ever ask him out?" Ronny was practically bouncing on the bed, eager to hear Rose's answer.
The pink ranger decided to burst her bubble. "Sorry, I'm just not that into him. Besides, I've got a bunch of other stuff to worry about. Those zords don't build themselves, you know."
Ronny look disappointed, but she hid it well. "Aww, fine then. But you're no fun."
Rose shrugged and chose not to reply, thankful that Ronny wasn't asking any more embarrassing questions. Keeping her relationship with Mack a secret was hard enough without Ronny goading her about liking him. She just hoped the yellow ranger would let the matter rest.
Rose suddenly laughed, realizing how off-topic they had gotten. "All of this, and you still haven't told me how you and Will got together!"
Ronny turned and leaned back against the wall, a small grin on her face. "There's not much of a story left to tell. Mack let me down and I was pretty bummed out. Will noticed how gloomy I was and we started talking and getting really close. A few days later we were going out, and well…the rest is history."
Rose smiled. "Still, that's sweet. I'm glad for you two."
Ronny shrugged, her smile dwindling. "Yeah…but nowadays, I'm not really sure if I still feel the same way about him," she looked to Rose, giving her a sad grin before continuing on, "This whole situation and everything…it kind of puts everything into a new perspective, y'know?"
Rose nodded. "Yeah, I know." 'I understand you better than you think, Ronny.'
The yellow ranger placed her chin in her hands. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it."
Rose gave the girl a sympathetic smile. "I suggest telling Will how you're feeling. Get it out in the open, or else you might do something stupid that you'll probably regret." 'God knows I almost did.' The thought made Rose shudder.
Ronny's smile was genuine this time. "Thanks, Rose. I don't think anyone else in this house can listen to me babble on without getting a headache."
Rose gave a grin of her own. "No worries. It's nice to just sit and chat sometimes."
An unexpected voice from the door caused the two to look up. Will smiled sheepishly at the two from the doorway. "Sorry to bother you two lovely ladies."
Rose grinned up at the black ranger. "No problem at all. What's up?"
Will held up an envelope and entered the room. "Hartford's got a new way to communicate. Dax gave me this a few minutes ago."
Ronny frowned slightly, more annoyed than angry. "Yeah, I got one too. You want to talk about it?"
Will nodded, but looked over to Rose apologetically. "If that's alright?"
Rose smiled. "Of course," she got up to the bed and moved towards the door, skirting around Will. She leaned on the doorframe. "I'll finish talking to you later, okay Ronny?"
The yellow ranger nodded and grinned. "Sure thing."
Rose shut the door behind her and stood there for a few moments, half-listening to the murmurs of conversation behind the painted wood. Eventually she turned away and began to walk down the hallway, wondering what she could possibly do to keep herself occupied.
She wound up walking down the stairs towards the game room, debating on the pros and cons of playing mind-numbing video games. When she arrived, her mind was made for her when she saw Dax at the game console, pounding at the buttons on the controller with a ferocity she hardly ever saw him let out, even during battles.
She rolled her eyes. "If you hit those buttons any harder, Dax, your thumbs will break off."
The blue ranger merely grunted and didn't bother turning towards her. He instead kept his eyes trained to the man on the screen who was running around a mall wielding a large chainsaw. Rose blanched as she saw the Dax unleash his anger on random, unsuspecting zombies, and decided that video games would probably rot her brain anyway.
She left the game room and ambled down the hall. She smiled as she saw Spencer on the stairs with a rather large load of laundry in his hands. "Hey, you need some help with that?"
The butler smiled at her. "Why, hello Rose. No, I'm quite fine actually. But if you'd like to help out, I think Mack is downstairs in the weight room unloading some new equipment."
She smiled, glad to find something to do. "If you're sure, Spencer…"
The older man smiled. "Of course. I'll be just fine with this. You go have fun with Mack." He winked at her and she rolled her eyes at him, smiling.
"Thanks, Spencer."
He gave one last smile before heading up the next flight of stairs. "Any time."
Rose watched him leave, and then made her way down to the first storey. She made a quick detour to the kitchen and grabbed two bottles of water from the refrigerator before making her way down to the basement.
The stairs led down to a small hallway with double doors at the end and a single door on the right. She walked past the single door and made her way to the end of the hallway. One of the two doors had been propped open, and she stood in the entrance, peering in.
She smiled as she saw the red ranger move about inside the massive room. There was plenty of equipment in the room that had already been put together and used, but there were still a few boxes of various items that needed to be unpacked. She put the water down on the floor and rested against the doorway quietly, contented to stay and watch him until he realized she was there.
She didn't have to wait long. Mack had just finished assembling one of the sets of machines when he looked up and saw her watching. He smiled and stood up, resting his back up against the newly assembled contraption, and crossed his arms across his chest. He smiled and mimicked her pose. "Hey, you."
She smiled at him, and her grin turned into a half-smirk. "Hello, Mackenzie."
He dropped the pose and raised an eyebrow at her, but didn't move. He stood, grinning. He didn't bother commenting on her use of his full name, knowing it would just give her ammunition to tease him. "What brings you down here?"
She raised her eyebrows at him and gave him a once-over before leaning her head back against the door. She was blunt, but truthful. "Admiring you."
He raised his eye at her. Rose gave a small laugh at his expression and he shook his head, making his way over to her. When he reached her he gathered her up in his arms and pressed his forehead to hers, grinning. She rested her hands on his chest and closed her eyes, a smile on her face.
She opened her eyes and stared into his, and laughed suddenly. He rolled his eyes. "What is it?"
"You're all sweaty." She didn't move away. Instead, her grin grew wider.
His smile matched hers. He shrugged. "Well, that's what happens when you've been unpacking weights for an hour."
She smiled and stood on her tiptoes, giving him a small peck on the lips. Her hands moved from his chest as she wrapped her arms around his waist. "Need any help with anything?"
He nodded, still smiling down at her. "I could use a hand with putting the treadmills together."
"Sure." She let go of his waist and made her way over to a box of tools in the corner of the room. He followed closely behind her, his hand on the small of her back. After they found the tools they needed, they unloaded one of the boxes and began piecing the equipment together.
They came up with a pattern. She would hold the pieces and he would screw them in place. As he would finish, she would grab another bar and align it correctly. Then he would move onto the new piece. It soon became a rhythm and the two worked quickly and quietly, their silence contented and not at all uncomfortable.
As they were finishing up, Rose broke the trance that they had brought themselves into by speaking quietly. "I lied to Ronny earlier. About us."
Mack looked up, momentarily worried, but his thoughts were put at ease when he saw the smile on her face. She was just making a statement; it was an easy conversation, nothing more. "What happened?"
She shrugged, accidentally dropping the handlebar she was holding in place. She picked it up again and fit it back into its place before continuing. "It's not as bad as I thought it would be." She gave him a short glance as he maneuvered his arms around hers to get the screw into the right place.
"I don't like lying to her, but…" she shrugged again.
He smiled at her. "Not as bad as you thought it would be?"
She nodded slightly as she moved to grab the other handlebar. "Considering everything we would have to deal with if we were found out?" She grinned, imagining the alternative, "no, not that bad at all."
Mack smiled at her and gave the screwdriver one last turn before standing up straight and clapping the nonexistent dust off of his hands. He struck a pose. "Done!"
She shook her head at his antics and walked over to the doorway to grab the water bottles she had left. He followed her and sat with his back up against the wall, thanking her as she handed him the water.
Rose moved to sit next to him, but she was slightly surprised when he pulled her down in front of him so she was basically sitting on his lap. She shifted to fix the awkward angle she had fallen at, and then leaned back against the red ranger's chest. She smiled and rested her head in the crook of his neck.
Mack wrapped one of his arms around her and used the other to bring the bottle of water to his lips, sipping at it. When he was finished, he sat the bottle down and ran his hand through her hair. He sighed. "How did you and Ronny end up talking about us?"
Rose closed her eyes momentarily, relaxing in his comfortable presence. "She was telling me about the time she asked you out," he gave her a questioning glance and she grinned, "After you got back from being kidnapped by Dumb and Dumber."
He raised his eyebrows and laughed. "She knew I was into you back then?"
Rose grinned and looked up at him. "I guess so," she shook her head at him and gave him a look, "And apparently you've been checking me out lately, because she's noticed that too."
He laughed again and leaned down, kissing her. She reached up to his face and pulled him closer to her, her lips grinning against his. Their faces moved apart and he smiled softly down at her, breathless. He hummed happily. "Can you blame me?"
Rose turned sideways and curled herself around him, hugging him close. She grinned. "I suppose not."
Mack smiled down at her and returned the embrace. He rested his cheek on top of her head and pulled her as close as he could. The two eventually fell into another comfortable silence, completely at ease with each other.
They were soon brought out of their reverie when they heard footsteps coming from the hallway. Mack groaned as Rose sat up, and she sent him a reassuring smile. She scooted over so she was leaning against the wall next to him, and he grabbed her hand in his, giving it a small squeeze before letting go. They looked up to see Spencer walk into the room.
The butler scanned the room for a moment before his eyes landed on the two resting against the wall. Mack looked over to him, a happy grin on his features. "What's up, Spencer?"
"Ah, a request from your father. He wants to talk to you."
Mack's smile faded slightly. "Did he say what he wanted to talk about?"
Spencer nodded, his persistent grin directed at the red ranger. "Something about a trip he plans on sending the lot of you to go on."
Mack nodded and sighed, a relieved look gracing his features. Rose looked up at the older man, interested. "A trip?"
Spencer sighed. "Well, yes. But don't ask me to tell you anything else, because I hardly know anything more about it than you do."
The pink ranger grinned at Spencer and then stood up. She glanced down and at Mack and offered her hand, smiling to herself as he took it and didn't let go.
Mack looked away from Rose and focused his attention on the butler. "Do you know where I can find him?"
Spencer motioned to the floors above him. "Your father should be up in his office, doing paperwork."
Mack grinned. "Thanks."
Spencer nodded almost imperceptibly at the younger boy. "Certainly, sir."
Mack turned his focus away from the butler and smiled softly at Rose. "You okay with finishing up down here?" He motioned to a few half-opened boxes in the opposite corner of the room.
She grabbed his other hand and took a few steps closer to him. "I think I can handle it."
He let out an amused grin and dipped his head down to kiss her lightly, not caring that Spencer was watching the two of them. "I'll see you later, then?"
She smiled. "Of course."
He let go of her hands and walked over to the hallway, turning around at the last second to smile at her before walking out the door.
Spencer looked over to Rose and laughed, "If you grin any wider, Rose, your mouth will take up your entire face."
Rose looked over to him and shook her head, giving him a mock glare. He laughed again and followed the path Mack had taken out into the hallway.
Rose turned and walked towards the corner of the room, a happy grin still on her face.