The first few days are a bit of an adjustment as the Rangers awkwardly try to deal with Ziggy's strange ailment. The Green Ranger is used to sticking close to others anyways, so he isn't expecting it to be much of an issue.

Due to her unflinching 'mother hen' instincts, however, Summer is very proactive about the situation from the get-go. She glues herself to his side almost immediately, dragging him along for her daily workout and patrols. They spend an afternoon watching the local high school baseball team scrimmage and have a deliriously good time cooking up memorable nicknames for each player. The coach finally kicks them out when he gets tired of hearing Summer and Ziggy scream, "Blind Nine strikes again," when a less than talented outfielder missed an easy catch by a mile or, "Here comes Zero, the no-hit hero!" when the weakest batter stepped up to the plate.

Nevertheless, Ziggy has an excellent time.

"Poor kids," laughs Ziggy as they head back to the garage. The sun is especially hot that afternoon, which is probably why Ziggy is feeling a bit worn out. "Maybe we were a bit harsh."

"Everyone's a twat in high school." Summer shrugs casually, shooting him an evil grin. "I was. They need some tough love."

Sometimes, Ziggy loves Summer Landsdown.

By the end of the second Summer-filled day, however, Ziggy is approaching desperate for some time apart from the well-meaning ranger. So far the other team members have viewed this Ziggy-Summer bonding time with amusement, though Ziggy often noticed Dillon lurking around while the two of them played pool or discussed the many fine qualities possessed by the enigmatic James Marsden, a mutual favorite of theirs. It's almost like the man was checking in on the Green Ranger, though the idea seems a bit dubious to Ziggy.

Still, he's deeply relieved to find the Black Ranger nearby once again as he and Summer return from a grocery run. Ziggy plunks his bags down on the kitchen counter, stupidly out of breath, and edges in Dillon's direction immediately.

"Ziggy, want to come with while I check in on border patrol?" asks Summer breezily as she finds space for her own bags on the island.

"Ah, actually," says Ziggy, pasting on a smile, "I promised Dillon here that I would be his wingman this evening."

The only person more skeptical than Summer about this obvious lie is Dillon himself. Before he can be outright rebuked, Ziggy gets up close to other man and pleads with his eyes, announcing rather insistently, "Isn't that right, Dillon?" Under his breath, he adds, "C'mon, I'm begging. Help a brother out."

Dillon smirks at Ziggy for a moment, but eventually he says, "Yeah, Summer. Having this scrawny git around really helps me stand out with the ladies."

Hunting for 'ladies' isn't exactly a pastime of any of the Rangers', but Summer seems to get the hint and lets it slide, rolling her eyes and waving the two of them off while shouting for Scott to 'get your butt in here! It's your turn to put away the groceries!'

"Thank you," Ziggy tells him when they've made it out of her sight, resting his forehead gratefully against Dillon's shoulder for a second. "I feel like I have the color yellow plastered to my eyeballs."

"She means well."

"Yes, and I love her to death, but can we please do something unproductive for like ten minutes? I don't think Summer quite grasps the concept of being 'idle'."

Taking pity on him, Dillon nudges the Green Ranger over to the sofa and turns on some 'Whose Line' reruns until Ziggy feels adequately lethargic.

.

After that, Summer backs off a bit and Ziggy floats between the Rangers like any regular day, amusing and irritating each of them as best he can. Exhaustion hits earlier and earlier in the evening, but it's still possible to get through the night in his own room, even if he finds himself coughing more and more often, jolting him from his slumber. He feels strangely weary even as he rests. It's not unbearable, though, so Ziggy keeps it to himself. Otherwise, things are fairly normal.

Or, you know, as normal as things can be when you're a Power Ranger suffering from some sort of energy drain caused by a giant metal trash can.

Yeah.

The first incident comes when Ziggy is lounging with Gem and Gemma in a spare back room. The twins are fiddling with a bizarre contraption for K and reliving some of the more exciting fights they had while living outside Corinth for Ziggy's amusement. It's during a particularly boring part in which the twins are going into great detail about how they were able to continue using their Zords even though the mainframe had been damaged by an attack (using gibberish mechanic language that Ziggy has yet to pick up on), that Gem perks up suddenly, shouting, "That's it!"

"What's it?" asks Ziggy, around a yawn.

"The rotor, for the aerial control—"

Gemma catches on, though Ziggy is still completely in the dark, and exclaims, "Of course! It's underneath the flanking panel—"

"So when we—"

"And they were—"

"We have to tell K!"

Then they're off, without so much as a by your leave. Ziggy rolls his eyes, not exactly upset to see them go. He was bound to fall asleep if he'd had to listen to that jargon any longer. Settling further into his chair, Ziggy closes his eyes and enjoys the momentary quiet. He'll be fed up of it soon enough, but it is nice to have some solitude. It doesn't even occur to him that there's an issue until a few minutes later when he starts coughing.

Sitting upright abruptly, Ziggy recalls his current state of dependence just before his vision starts swimming. He considers calling for help, but feels ridiculous. He doesn't want to be so… so… needy. He can handle this, he'll just move closer to the living room where another ranger is bound to be nearby. No problem.

By the time he makes it out of the room and into the hallway, his chest has constricted considerably and he hugs the wall as he limps rather pathetically towards the stairs, wheezing loudly as he does. It hits him suddenly, the fact that he's in real danger here. What if he passes out and the rangers take too long to come looking for him? What if there's an attack and they leave the garage? What if…

He has stopped moving, he realizes through a haze. There's thin carpet beneath his knees and he's gasping for breath while staring at the completely idiotic pattern the flooring has when someone shouts, "Ziggy!" and grabs him by the shoulders.

He doesn't get his breath back immediately like he did while they tested his limit in K's office, the rangers backing off a set distance until they got a reaction from Ziggy. Once they'd determined the distance they could be before Ziggy would start feeling weak and out of breath, the rangers had tumbled forward in a rush and Ziggy had felt instant relief.

Instead, he keeps sucking in desperate gulps of air that don't satisfy his lungs by half, feeling shaky and drowsy and half-removed. The person who found him drops down to their knees as well, still saying his name. It's Dillon, Ziggy confirms through the haze and he wants to make a joke about knights in shining leather if he only had the breath. If he didn't know better, Ziggy might think Dillon was panicking by the way the other man was grasping at Ziggy, dragging the Green Ranger closer and trying to make him focus.

It takes a few more minutes, but Ziggy does finally start to feel an improvement, inhales filling his chest at last. Coughing and dizziness subsiding, Ziggy finds himself panting against Dillon's shoulder, hands clamped securely in the folds of his jacket.

"That was unpleasant," he mumbles almost into the other Ranger's throat and Dillon huffs a laugh that sounds less controlled than Ziggy was expecting.

They hold like that for another minute or so while Ziggy gathers his bearings, until the younger man pushes away with a "that's enough PDA for now, I think." When he gets a good look at his savior, he's expecting an eye-roll for his trouble.

Instead, Dillon looks murderous. "Why weren't you with anyone?"

"I was," Ziggy answers, taken aback by the anger in his voice. The truth slips out before he can think to change his story. "But the twins had to tell K something and I—I forgot."

There's a gleam in Dillon's eye that spells imminent danger to two very unlucky Rangers in the near future and Ziggy realizes his error. His protests are ignored, however, as Dillon grabs his arm and tows him out into the living room, where they unfortunately find Gem and Gemma just exiting Dr. K's lab.

"You two," barks Dillon, pointing a finger at them. "Care to explain why I just found our Green Ranger here—" he shakes Ziggy for emphasis "—struggling for breath without another Ranger in sight?"

Gem and Gemma are speechless in the face of Dillon's ire and Ziggy feels instantly sorry for them. The Black Ranger knows how to be truly terrifying when he wants to be.

"Dillon, I'm fine, I'm okay," Ziggy tells him, trying for soothing.

"You have no sense of self preservation!"

Ziggy stares at him, incredulous. "I have no sense of self preservation? What are you talking about? Preserving myself is like the only thing I'm good at!"

Dillon is pacing now, finally finished shaking Ziggy. Off to the side, Gem and Gemma are looking contrite.

"We didn't mean to get Ziggy tired," says Gemma in a small voice. "We were just so excited about showing our results to Dr. K—"

"—that we forgot to make sure Ziggy was with us," Gem finishes. Dillon glares at them.

Waving a forgiving hand in their direction, Ziggy says, "Hey, no harm done guys. Seriously." He turns around to put a firm palm on Dillon's chest and says in a lower voice, "Seriously. So you can back off robo-man. You're scaring the kids."

Dillon's glare reverts back to Ziggy, completely ignoring the attempt at a joke. "They should be scared. We have to watch out for you."

"I'm not an invalid, Dillon. I just lost my breath."

Approaching footsteps alert them to the arrival of the rest of the Rangers, coming from the direction of the basketball court. Rounding on them, Dillon shouts, "Will one of you please tell him—" jabbing a finger at Ziggy "—to stop acting like such an idiot?"

Ziggy rolls his eyes. "Yes, and when we're done with that crucial and absolutely necessary conversation, feel free to inform Dillon of what an overbearing, irrational dickhead he's currently being."

Seemingly despite herself, Summer lets out a cross between a gasp and snort and immediately brings hands up to her mouth to quash the sound. Ziggy wants to beam at managing to elicit such a response from the Yellow Ranger, but he's a bit preoccupied. Slouching in a seemingly relaxed pose, arms crossed and eyebrows raised, Ziggy meets Dillon's angry gaze. In front of him, Dillon is clenching and unclenching his fists reflexively, jaw locked. Gemma fills the others in on what happened briefly, apologizing as she does, while the Black and Green Ranger stand at an impasse, neither willing to budge.

Silence reigns in the garage for a tense second before Scott seems to decide he needs to step in. "Okay, listen. Obviously, as a team, we need to make a better effort to watch out for Ziggy while he's—" Scott searches for an appropriate descriptions, "—afflicted. But we're also not going to start blaming each other."

Dillon's shoulders droop perceptibly and he looks almost chagrined. Before Ziggy can get too smug, Scott continues with, "And Ziggy should have alerted one of us the second Gem and Gemma ran off."

"I thought I'd be fine for a couple minutes—" Ziggy protests immediately, but Scott raises a hand to cut him off.

"No more of that. I'm not trying to be harsh, but Dillon is right about one thing. You may not have a problem with self-preservation, but sometimes you have difficulty letting people help you. We're your family, Ziggy. It may be annoying, but we're going to smother you with attention if that's what it takes to keep you safe."

There's a strange feeling tugging at Ziggy's chest and he finds himself staring at Scott in astonishment, throat dry. Apparently done with his speech, Scott clasps his shoulder amiably before turning to Dillon. "Can you come to the lab? K said she has a few more questions about our scouting earlier."

Dillon nods his assent, but glances back at Ziggy before following. "Zig—"

"Yeah, yeah," sighs Ziggy, quirking a grin at him. "Me too."

Dillon returns the expression while shaking his head slightly and follows Scott out of the room.

Smile still in place, Ziggy swivels to find Summer and Flynn watching him closing. Flynn is smirking minutely, but the Yellow Ranger looks a bit stunned.

"What?"

Instead of answering him, Flynn turns to Summer and says, "You see? That is the kinda thing I'm talking about."

Turning a bit pink, Summer opens her mouth a few times before settling on, "I'm going to go… elsewhere." With that, she heads towards her room, still looking a bit dazed.

"What's up with her?" asks Ziggy on the tail end of a yawn. "Are you filling her head with your sordid Scottish tales again?"

"Not quite," replies Flynn, smirk broadening. Ziggy needles a bit more, but gives up with a shrug when the Blue Ranger refuses to elaborate. They roll out the Nintendo and play a few one-sided rounds of Smash Bros. (Ziggy wishing growing up in a Cartel left more time for playing video games) before Dillon and Scott are back and the three of them join forces to eliminate Flynn's character.

.

.

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Oh god, guys. The flirting that's coming up. And team bonding. Well, more than there already has been. You guys, there is so much. It appears that's all I really want to write. Plot? What is this strange thing you speak of?

Can I just have the R.P.M rangers for my own, please? And a James Marsden, if it's not too much trouble. Those dimples kill me.