I hate being a senior, it sucks so much. But at least I didn't get Senioritis yet and I hope I never do. Anyway, please enjoy this chapter and thanks to BlueGem22 for her help with this idea!

Q is for Questioning

The doors of the Shiba House slammed open, alerting Master Ji to his students' arrival from their latest battle with the half-nighlocks. He heard the hurried sound of footsteps before Mia and Lauren came running into the common room.

"Master, its Emily! Kotoha got her really badly, we need you in the infirmary now!" Lauren said

"Get the healer Kuroko, Mia!" Master Ji ordered while he followed Lauren to the infirmary. He found Jayden by Emily's bedside holding pressure on an injury on her leg. Antonio and Kevin were pulling items out of the cabinet that held medical items.

"What happened?" Master Ji asked looking at Emily. She was pale, no doubt from the blood loss she was experiencing, her clothes were ripped and her blonde hair was stained with dirt and blood. The last time he had seen something this bad was when Jayden tried to single handily go against Xandred.

"Emily got the upper hand on Chiaki. He was really hurt when Kotoha went off. She almost landed a really bad blow when Takeru of all people stopped her. They disappeared after that. Mentor, half of the attacks she got was out of Ranger transformation." Lauren said

Ji's heart skipped. Half the reason these kids were still alive from the fights they had been involved in was because they had gotten the attacks while in Ranger form. They had protected many generations of Rangers for years. All the Rangers knew if you were going to go into a fight by yourself, you went in your Ranger uniform. Hearing that half of Emily's injuries were out of uniform was not good. That would of hit a lot deeper that if they were inflicted when in Ranger form. Then he noticed something odd, there was a Ranger missing from the room.

"Where's Mike?"

The silence in the room was deafening. By this time, Mia and the healer Kuroko came in.

"Um, well when we went to check on Emily after Takeru ordered for everyone to leave, he wasn't there. I can't believe Mike would just leave Emily like that." Mia said

What the team didn't know was that Emily was unconscious. She heard everything.

'Mike isn't here? D-did he leave me here alone?'

Mike sat in the park, where the fight had taken place only minutes before. He knew the rest of team was probably wondering why he taken off as soon as the half-nighlocks left. He couldn't face Emily. He couldn't save her when Kotoha decided to use his girlfriend as a punching bag. She deserved so much better than him. She needed someone who could protect her. He couldn't save her when Splitface stole her soul. He promised never to hurt again when they went against Negatron but it seemed he always hurt her, intentional or not. It was probably best if he stayed away from her, far away from her.

At that moment, Kotoha came from a crake she and the others half-nighlocks had gone through when they took Chiaki back to the ship. Takeru ordered she leave the ship when her lingering anger caused the ship to rock, making Chiaki even more uncomfortable. Her usual long black hair had changed to a shoulder length pigtailed look. She was dressed in long sleeve yellow top, black shorts, thigh high black socks and ankle boots. Still annoyed she had been sent away from her boyfriend, Kotoha didn't notice Mike till she was walking right past him. She almost turned back to her known human form when she saw the utterly defeated look on his face. She didn't know why but his look struck a chord in her.

"Excuse me," Mike looked up to see Kotoha, "are you ok?" she asked

"Who me? Yeah, I'm fine. Totally." Kotoha could easily see he was lying. She quickly wondered if it had to do with her retaliation against Emily.

"You look like you just got dumped." Kotoha said sitting. One side of her was yelling to not to try and make the enemy happy and another wondered how Mike didn't recognise her.

Mike's mask fell immediately. He looked back to his feet in shame, "Yeah, something like that. My girlfriend got hurt and instead of being with her, I'm here."

"Why?" Why did Kotoha care? She shouldn't but she couldn't stop her mouth from asking all these questions

"Because I can't protect her. She deserves someone who can. I'm always just standing there when she gets hurt."

"Something tells me it's not bullying that the cause of it."

"Not exactly. It's our job. We've been doing it for almost 3 years now. But today, watching her get hurt like that, it made me realise that I can't protect her whenever I want to. I felt completely useless."

Then it hit Kotoha as to why she felt for Mike. When Emily had been fighting Chiaki, she felt like he did.

'I'm probably going to regret saying this later.' "What you're doing is making her feel worse than you are right now." Mike looked at Kotoha who began to stare at her shoes, "No doubt, she's wondering where you went and why you're not next to her. I understand because my boyfriend kinda went through the same thing and instead of being with him, I was sent outside. I heading back there now but I think if you really cared, you'd go and see her. Let her decided if you can't protect her." With that, Kotoha got up and walked off, mentally hitting herself for helping an enemy. 'But something tells me he'd do the same for me.'

Emily woke up from her nap to see Mike asleep on the chair next to her bed, leaning against the wall.

"Mike?" Emily asked mostly to herself, but it woke Mike up all the same. When he saw Emily looking at him, he jumped up and took her hand.

"Em, how are you feeling?" Before she got the chance to answer though, he quickly let go of her hand, robbing it of the warmth it was giving.

"Mike?"

"Em, I'm sorry I left you back there. I thought you'd think I was totally weak and not want me anymore and then I just left you while you were hurt. I started to question whether or not I could protect you or not."

Mike lifted his cast down eyes to look at Emily who reached out and took his hand again.

"Mike, you've protected me more than you know. You just couldn't get there fast enough this time. I'm not mad at you and I certainly don't think you can't protect me. And I don't think I can let go of you any time soon."

Emily's smile got bigger as she felt Mike squeeze her hand back, his eyes taking back its usual sparkle. Never again would he question his ability to protect Emily.

I hope you guys like this. Please review and if you read any of my other stories, please look at my poll. It's for a new story I'm gonna work on and I need your help.