Flynn pulled himself painfully from his bed and hobbled down the corridor towards the intensive care wards.

He hated this. He hated the fact he was still up and about. Doctors kept telling him he needed to rest and that he should be in bed, but he couldn't help it. He could stand and he could walk so that was good enough for him. Other than that, he needed to know about her.

As he approached the room, he saw a couple of guards there, protecting her. One of them approached him and put a hand into his chest.

"Do you really want to try and stop me?" He asked them. "I'm bruised up, but I'm still more than able to hand you your arses."

They parted, allowing him to enter Sam's intensive care ward. He approached the bed slowly, taking a seat next to her.

"Sam, it's me." He began as he struggled to hold in his tears. "You need to wake up sweetheart."

He couldn't hold in his expectation at hoping she'd wake up. Of course fate was not that kind. She was in a coma.

"Honey it's me" He informed her. "Everything's working well out here; you don't have to pretend anymore. It's alright to want a day off."

He sat there, watching the monitors, hoping for some sign of life, but it didn't come.

"Sam, I'm sorry!" He sobbed as his tears overtook him. "I didn't want this for you!"

He sank his head into her abdomen and wept as the weight of his guilt crushed him slowly. He would happily take every inch of her pain into himself if he knew she would be alright. He was the one Tanaya wanted, he was the Ranger. It wasn't right that Sam was hurt because of him.

He heard a slight gurgle and looked up, seeing her eyes beginning to flutter open. His heart raced as he saw this. Sam reached up towards the mask, but he held her hands gently.

"You need that." He told her gently. "You've been through a lot."

A few tears began to fall down her face and she ripped her hands from his, pulling the mask off. Every breath hurt, and she was certain that he was coddling her to protect her from the truth of her condition.

"My legs hurt." She told him in hurried gasps. "They're broken aren't they?"

Flynn nodded sadly in response. He hated to see her like this, she was such a lively, energetic person that it just didn't seem right to see her lying in a sickbed like this.

"I can't move them." She sniffed as she looked at him, wordlessly begging him to tell her her suspicions weren't true. "It's my back isn't it? My back's been broken."

He wanted to lie to her, he wanted to tell her otherwise, but he couldn't. He loved her so much that he knew it didn't matter if he lied to her or not. She would see the truth in his eyes. He nodded in response.

"Your spinal cord hasn't been severed." He told her. "Two of your vertebrae were broken, but the spinal cord is intact."

Sam just clamped a hand over her eyes and wept. Hearing the truth didn't make it any easier to deal with.

"Sam, I'm sorry, I tried to save you." He told her warmly, holding her hand.

"You should have let me die!" She spat bitterly, ripping her hand away from him.

"Sam, I'm sorry this happened..."

"I know you are Flynn." She fold him comfortingly, caressing his hand softly with her hand. "What use am I now? I'm a cripple."

"Sam, you don't know that." Flynn told her, caressing her hand gently. "You can still feel your legs. Your spinal cord wasn't severed, you can recover with physiotherapy, you can..."

"Save the pep talk for someone who isn't a forensic scientist!" She snapped. "I'm a damn cripple and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it!"

"Sam, the doctors..."

"I don't give a good god damn what the doctors say!" She roared as her tears flowed a little more freely. "I'm never going to walk again!"

"Sam, you can't give up on this!" He pleaded with her as he stood over her, his own tears beginning to form in his eyes. "You have to try, you have to fight."

"What for Flynn? To be crippled for good by the next robot that comes after you? To be killed because I'm in love with you?" She snarled.

"Sam..."

"Get out!" She screamed, picking up a vase of flowers from her bedside table and launching it at his head, narrowly missing him.

Flynn stared at her, his lip quivering as he looked at her. She didn't need to blame him for what happened, he already blamed himself. He hated to see her this way. He turned and left without another word, feeling every inch of her pain in his heart ten times over. He wanted to be able to save her, to make everything alright, but he just couldn't. He heard his morpher bleeping and pulled it out, answering the call.

"What is it doc?" He asked as he wiped away some tears with his wrist.

"Flynn, you need to recover." Dr. K answered. "I paged everyone but..."

"I'm a grown man doc, I'll decide what I'm up to!" He snarled into the mouthpiece. "What is it?"

"Ranger Green..."

"Ziggy!" He corrected her a little too aggressively, his anger over Sam's condition getting the better of him. "His name's Ziggy!"

"Ziggy's involved in a battle with Tanaya 7 at the orphanage." She stammered, a little taken aback by this reaction from Flynn.

"Tell him I'm coming," he snapped in response, "and when I get there robo-bitch is going down hard!"

Ziggy was dashed aggressively to the ground by another hard attack. He had been fighting with Tanaya now for some time, but he was not faring well. He wasn't a fighter, not by a long chalk, he had always relied on Benny for that side of things when he worked for Fresno Bob. He only knew one thing; he needed to stop her going into the orphanage. Just like Bob, he knew that she wouldn't care who she hurt or what she did to them in pursuit of her objective. He had to stop her from going into the orphanage, even if it cost him his life. It was a small price to pay.

"Leave him alone!" A tiny voice screamed as a rock slammed into the side of Tanaya's head, breaking her face shield. "Stop hurting Ziggy!"

Ziggy watched in horror as Wendy, the young girl Tanaya had held hostage to get him to face her rushed out of her hiding place, throwing stones and screaming at her. Tanaya grabbed the young girl and lifted her up, glaring at her.

"Let her go!" Charlie screamed as he ran out of his hiding place, hitting her as hard as he could with a baseball bat. Tanaya turned and dumped Wendy on him, before approaching them menacingly.

She paused as she raised her hand to attack. She couldn't understand why, they attacked her, but somewhere deep inside her, there was something that stopped her from just destroying them. She couldn't even hurt them, it was just...wrong!

Ziggy snatched up his Turbo Axe and swung it wildly into her back, sending her flying through the air.

"You aren't going to hurt these kids!" He snapped at her. "Do what you want to me, but you can't hurt the kids!"

Tanaya pulled herself to her feet and looked at him with amazement. He was easily the weakest of the Rangers, but he had attacked her with a strength and ferocity she couldn't fathom.

"I'll be back another day Ranger!" She spat as she ran from the scene. Ziggy de-morphed, sinking to his knees with exhaustion as Charlie and Wendy rushed to him and hugged him tightly. Dillon's car skidded to a halt a little way from him, closely followed by Scott's.

"Ziggy, are you alright?" Dillon asked him as he rushed to his friend's side. Ziggy nodded weakly.

"She decided she had other things to do." He told him. Flynn ran into the courtyard, looking around frantically.

"Where is she?" He snapped.

"She's gone." Ziggy informed him. Flynn gave him a hateful glare and shoved Scott aside, hauling him up by the shirt.

"You let her get away?" He snarled as he held him closely. He rammed him against the wall of the orphanage. "You let her get away!"

"Snap out of it Flynn!" Dillon warned him, tearing them apart. "He did his best!"

"Well his best wasn't good enough!" Flynn responded bitterly. "That robotic psycho could be anywhere..."

His words were cut off as Dillon punched him in the face, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. Flynn looked up at him in amazement.

"We're all upset about what happened to you and Sam." He told him. "Blaming Ziggy isn't going to help."

Flynn looked over to Ziggy, noticing that he was still struggling to remain on his feet and finally realised how much he had given to protect the orphanage.

"Ziggy, I'm sorry." He muttered as he got to his feet and offered a hand to the Green Ranger. "I'm so messed up because of what happened to Sam...."

"It's OK, I understand." Ziggy assured him, shaking his hand. He jerked his head in the direction of the orphanage. "I don't know what I'd have done if anything had happened to the kids."

"I really mean it, I shouldn't have given you such a rough time." Flynn reiterated, putting his arm around Ziggy and helping him towards his hummer. "I'll even forgive you for taking my truck without asking."

"I'm glad to hear that." Ziggy told him. "I didn't think you would mind."

"You didn't think I would leave hospital you mean." He replied, slapping him playfully in the gut. "You're lucky I'm a forgiving guy. Normally I'd skin anyone that took my truck without asking."

His smile slipped and he looked to his feet, almost as if he had realised a great betrayal. In many ways he had, he remembered that Sam was lying in the hospital with her heart in pieces because of him.

"Flynn, what's wrong?" Ziggy asked him. The Scotsman sat on the steps outside the orphanage and shook his head sadly.

"It's my fault Ziggy, it's all my fault." He muttered sadly as his tears began. "Sam hates me, and she has every right to. She's probably going to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair because of me."

"You can't believe that Flynn, not for one second!" Ziggy stated, stroking his shoulders gently. "You didn't do this to her..."

"I may as well have broken her back myself!" He snapped. He looked up, hoping for some kind of divine intervention, but it wouldn't come. "She hates me."

"She's hurt." Ziggy reminded him. "You can't believe that she blames you for this."

"You didn't hear her Ziggy, she hates me." He muttered under his breath as he wiped his face with his wrist. "I can't blame her. I hate myself."

"Flynn, you did everything you could to save her." Ziggy told him. "You were almost killed."

"That's the problem." Flynn told him. "I ALMOST died."

"So this would have been better if you had died?" Ziggy asked him. Flynn nodded.

"Yes." He replied, looking at him with an honesty in his eyes that was a little scary. "Yes, it would have been better if I had died."

Tanaya arrived back at Venjix's headquarters, more than a little banged up from the Green Ranger's assault. She still didn't know why she hesitated during her battle with him. She only knew that it had something to do with the kids. She could remember seeing the boy wrapping his arms around the girl defensively.

She got an image in her head, it wasn't the children she saw at the orphanage, but it was similar. A boy was cradling a little girl defensively as he confronted their attacker.

"She's just a little kid!" He screamed as he held her face into his chest. "Don't hurt her! You can't hurt her!"

Tanaya shook her head and cleared her thoughts as she arrived in the main chamber. Venjix was waiting for her.

"You failed!" The computer stated.

"I could not do it." She told it. "There were children there and..."

"Silence!" Venjix announced, interrupting her. "You will regret this. Report to the regeneration room."

Tanaya made her way to her cell to be repaired and sat in the chair as the restraints fastened around her wrists and her ankles. A single tear leaked from her eye as she prepared for the injections to begin. She couldn't hurt the children, she just couldn't. Something inside her stopped her.

Her thoughts strayed back to the night she fought the Blue Ranger. She couldn't understand why, but she was thinking about the woman she had taken hostage to draw him out. When she scanned them to assess their condition, she had found the woman was in a bad way physically. She couldn't understand why she kept thinking about her, she had been nothing, merely bait, a bargaining chip to use against the Blue Ranger. The strange thing was that she was still thinking about her. There was just one more thing that bothered her. Those thoughts hurt.

She felt strangely uncomfortable about what had happened to the woman she had kidnapped. She knew that Venjix's ultimate goal was to destroy all human life, but for some reason she was affected by this woman's injury. It just felt wrong to hurt her in that way.

She felt the first needle sink deeply into her flesh and quickly passed out as the sedatives coursed through her biological systems. She still didn't understand why she couldn't attack the tiny humans.

Summer fidgeted on the couch as she finished what she was trying to tell Dr. Young. She couldn't believe she had revealed so much of herself to him. She never revealed much of herself to anyone. Even Scott, who was like a brother to her, didn't know everything about her.

"I just always felt like I was constantly trying to prove myself." She told him. "I always knew I'd have to work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously as all the guys but I prided myself on keeping pace." She looked to her therapist and laughed nervously.

"When Ronan attacked me I felt so weak. I couldn't believe that despite all my training I was so vulnerable." She continued. "I just knew everyone would say that they were right about me, that I couldn't handle it. Colonel Truman said he'd protect me, but I just felt like no one would respect me if they knew so I made him promise he wouldn't tell anyone."

"Well that's everything for today." He told her with a smile as he got up from his chair. "We'll continue next time, I think some hypnotherapy would be the right way to go."

"Hypnotherapy?" She asked with a slight note of panic in her voice. "You're going to hypnotise me?"

"Your problems are deep in your subconscious. That's why you keep bringing them back in your dreams." He told her. "The medication you're taking will block you from having dreams, but it isn't a long term solution. You need to face these problems, and the only way to do that is in your dreams."

"In my dreams?" Summer asked him a little sceptically. "So I'd be hypnotized and helpless and.."

"You're entirely safe here." Dr. Young reminded her, holding her hand gently. "Nothing will happen that you don't want to. You can end any session any time you want to."

"Thanks." She said as she chewed her fingernails nervously. "I really want to get through this."

He smiled at her and settled into his chair with a knowing grin on his face.

"This is about more than just the attack isn't it?" He asked her. "There's someone important in your life isn't there?"

Summer smiled as she thought about Dillon. She wanted nothing more than to be able to enjoy having him hold her. She loved him.

"There is a guy in my life." She told him. "His name's Dillon."

"Are you having problems with him?" Dr. Young asked. She nodded.

"I just can't let anyone hold me." She confessed. "Any time I feel someone's arms close around me, I just think of what Ronan did and I start to freak out. I just start lashing out and I attack."

"You don't want that do you?" Dr. Young asked her. Summer shook her head.

"I want to be able to enjoy a normal relationship, I really do." She told him. "I can't let him hold me, but I really want to. I know it hurts him when I pull away from him, but I can't help it."

"He's held you before, hasn't he?" Dr. Young asked her.

"He held me when he rode pillion on my bike." She told him. Dr. Young smiled and nodded.

"You were in control." He commented. "Have you ridden with him since you were released?"

"No." She told him honestly. "I've been so focused on trying to get over this."

"We'll begin your main treatment during your next visit." He stated. "Until then, I have one thing I want you to do. Go for a ride with Dillon."

"Excuse me?" She gasped as she stared at him.

"You feel comfortable with him and you trust him to touch you." He began the explaination. "You feel in control on the bike. It'll be a safe and comfortable environment in which someone can touch you."

"I don't know...."

"You aren't willing to try?" He asked her. "Not even for Dillon?"

Summer just nodded her head in understanding and stood up. She loved him dearly, and she wanted to take things further with him. It was just her damned brain that had the problems letting him in.

"I'll do it." She replied. "I need to get through this."

"For Dillon?" Dr. Young asked her. Summer looked at him and smiled, shaking her head slowly.

"No." She replied. "I need to do it for me."

Tanaya woke up from her latest procedure and the restraints opened allowing her to get up.

"You will now know the true cost of failure." Venjix told her. She felt like she had been punched hard in the back, and collapsed to the floor. She reached down, grabbing her legs. She couldn't feel them or move them.

"You are mine to control!" It told her. She felt another punch, and suddenly her face was on the floor. Her arms stopped responding to any of her commands. She couldn't move at all.

"You've told me a stark truth about yourself. You have a survival instinct." Venjix explained. "All I wonder is what will happen when my wishes and your survival instinct conflict? The fact is I couldn't trust you, that's why I gave you three new implants while you slept."

"Three?" Tanaya asked.

"One is in your lower spine, and will block any electrical impulses to your legs rendering you paraplegic if I activate it." He informed her. "The second is above your shoulders and will render you quadriplegic if it is activated."

"What about the third?" She asked as a tear leaked from her eye to the floor. She wasn't even able to wipe her eyes since she was completely paralysed. "What about the third implant?"

"It's on your heart." The computer stated. "I control your heart."

"I didn't lose because I'm weak!" She whimpered. "I did all I could..."

"But you valued your own life above my orders." Venjix reminded her as a couple of grinders came out of a side room and picked her up, positioning her back in the chair and restraining her.

"You are mine." Venjix reminded her.

Tanaya could do nothing but weep as she was imprisoned in her own body. She knew she had a life before the implants, she just couldn't remember it. Now though, Venjix had taken everything from her. Now she had nothing that was hers, not even her own body.