"Saryn?" she murmured, intending to ask him. But her voice sounded out of place to her ears, and she frowned as she reached out and found him suddenly absent. "Where are you?" she mumbled, rolling over onto her side and realizing abruptly that she was awake.

How could she be awake now when she hadn't been asleep before? And where was he? He was still here; she could feel him, but she couldn't see him. "Saryn?" she repeated, a little louder. The sound of her voice as she lifted her head convinced her that she had indeed been dreaming, but it didn't tell her where he'd gone.

She shook her head, trying to make the dream memories separate themselves from reality. Sometimes it was harder than others. He wasn't here; she had left him with his starfighter hours ago to get some sleep. She had only barely made it back to the Hammonds' by ten, but luckily Ashley had been late and her parents hadn't pressed for details when she told them she'd decided to go study at the Youth Center.

So why was she so convinced that she could still feel Saryn, as she had in her dream, standing next to her by the window?

Resolutely, she pushed herself out of bed and climbed to her feet, tangling her fingers in her hair to hold it away from her face. She couldn't quite suppress a yawn as she stumbled over to the door, and she wrinkled her nose at the thought that she was becoming insomniac as well as paranoid.

Closing her eyes, she flipped the lightswitch on. The darkness behind her eyelids glowed red, and she cracked them open gingerly. Squinting in the brightness, she scanned the room and found nothing out of the ordinary. "Well, duh," she muttered to herself. "What did you expect?"

With a shake of her head, she turned the overhead light off. As the light vanished, though, she was sure she saw one of the shadows move. She snapped the light back on instantly, and her eyes watered a little under the sudden assault.

Nothing.

She frowned, hand hesitating over the lightswitch. "Is someone there?" she asked, feeling silly even as she said it. Of course there was no one there. She was alone in the room; she could see that for herself.

"Saryn?" she asked anyway, remembering the Phantom Ranger's ability to make himself invisible. He wouldn't do that, would he? He wouldn't sneak into her house, into her bedroom, and watch her while she was sleeping. Would he?

No, she decided at last. Because that would just be weird. *Or romantic,* her mind offered, and she rolled her eyes. *No,* she disagreed. *Weird. As in, stalker weird.*

She flicked the lightswitch off again, making her way back to her futon in the semi-darkness. She threw herself down on the mattress and tugged the lightweight comforter up over her shoulders with finality. *Go to sleep,* she told herself firmly.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. She hadn't really thought it could be. As sleepy as she'd been just a few moments ago, she was now wide awake. Isn't that always the way, she thought irritably. It was like waking up thirsty. You couldn't go back to sleep without getting a drink, but by the time you'd gotten a glass of water and made it back to your room, you were too awake to sleep anyway.

*Lose-lose situation,* she decided with a sigh. She pulled the comforter a little closer and put out one hand, fumbling for the one stuffed animal she'd brought with her. Her hand encountered soft fur in the crack between the futon and the wall, and she latched onto the yellow dog's ear and dragged him out. Wrapping her arm around Jetson, she snuggled closer into the pillow and closed her eyes again.

It was a funny thing about closing your eyes, she thought a moment later. You felt like you were still awake, and yet the longer you had them closed the farther you got from consciousness. It was a good way to fall asleep, but it was deceiving... She cracked one eye open, just to see if it was working, and then tried not to smile. Checking was a sure way to make it fail. She closed her eyes again, determined to think about something else.

And opened them wide again almost immediately, sitting straight up in bed. "All right," she said to no one in particular. "It's not funny anymore."

There was no answer from her silent room, though she stared around for several moments, trying to pin down *something* she could point to as the source of this nebulous feeling of not-aloneness. "I swear," she muttered, "between invisible Rangers and Ashley's X-Files theories, I'm going to completely lose my mind."

*If I haven't already,* she added silently, frowning at the darkness. "Saryn," she said aloud. "If this is your fault, I'm going to have to do something drastic to you."

She definitely wasn't alone. She couldn't be; the words had made the room change. It was like... someone turning to look at her. She couldn't describe the feeling any better than that, any more than she could describe where it came from.

She shivered a little. "That *better* be you," she said under her breath. "Because if it isn't, and I'm not losing my mind, then there's someone in this room that I don't know, and I don't really want to think about that."

No. She didn't know where her assurance came from, but that wasn't right. It was either him, or she was crazy. There was no third option--but at this point she wasn't sure whether that was comforting or not.

"Saryn," she said slowly, swinging her legs over the side of her futon. She was suddenly conscious of the fact that she wore only a nightshirt, but if he wasn't going to show himself, then she refused to let herself care. "This isn't exactly fair, you know."

This time she waited a moment, listening for the faint hint of a response that had followed her last two remarks. There was nothing, though, and she felt another flash of doubt. It was possible that she was sitting in her room at... she glanced at the clock.

2:05. She could be sitting in her room at two in the morning, then, talking to no one but herself. Wouldn't that look good if someone decided to get up for a midnight snack and heard her mumbling to herself in the middle of the night.

"Fine," she said aloud. "Don't say anything. But I can't sleep with you here, so I'm just going to keep complaining until you go away."

This time she was sure she felt something, but whether it was an echo of amusement or just a breeze from the open window, she couldn't be sure. "Sure," she grumbled anyway. "You think it's funny. You don't have to get up in four hours. You can sleep all morning if you want to."

That wasn't true, but she didn't know why. She couldn't imagine why he would be on a schedule--he had said he was on vacation, after all. Of course, she supposed, she didn't know for how long. Or even from what... she still knew precious little about him, no matter their spending the entire evening together today.

"You know more about me than I do about you," she said suddenly, not sure whether she should be upset about that or not.

There was the slightest flicker of disagreement, and she frowned. "Yeah, you do. You know... everything. What I do, where I go to school... even how I became a Ranger. You've seen where I live, now. Which is more than I can say for you."

She remembered him offering to take her to Eltare, and she amended, "Well, you did say I could see it. But I still don't *know*, you know?"

*Okay, that sounded stupid,* she thought with a grimace. "You know, you could make this a lot easier by actually participating in the conversation," she muttered under her breath.

Apology.

Without thinking, she exclaimed, "Don't apologize; just let me see you!"

She clenched her toes in the carpet as she realized how loud that had been, and she prayed that everyone in the Hammond household was sleeping soundly tonight. Then the smallest of movements caught her eye and she turned her head involuntarily. She had to stifle a gasp as she saw the Phantom Ranger standing by her window, visor reflecting the starlight as he stared out at the night.

"Well," she managed at last, finding her voice. "I guess that's... half what I meant."

He didn't answer.

So he wasn't going to be anymore talkative now that he was visible than he had been when she couldn't see him. She felt irritation flare within her. "Look, I'm not trying to be rude, but is there a reason that you're standing in my room staring out the window at two in the morning? I was trying to sleep, in case you didn't notice."

He tilted his visor to the side, as though he was trying to study something on the other side of the window more closely. But she got the distinct impression that he had been trying to sleep too--a sort of "me too" feeling that was no more vocal than anything else he had said since she had woken up.

Though she had regretted her waspish remark as soon as it was out, now she couldn't repress a shiver as she realized what he had to be doing. "You're psychic, aren't you," she whispered. "Can you--can you read my mind?"

"No." It was the first thing he had said aloud, and she tried not to start at the sound of his voice. It was flatter and slightly less accented when filtered through his Ranger uniform, as though computer-corrected by some kind of comm system.

"Then how come I can read yours?" she persisted, trying to ignore the phenomenon. "How come I knew what you were thinking, before?"

"Did you know what I was thinking?" he countered, still staring out the window. She couldn't tell if his tonelessness was natural or simply a result of his morph. "Or what I was feeling?"

She frowned, trying to figure that out. "I don't know," she said at last. She watched him watch the night, wishing he would demorph again. "Does it matter?"

"Yes."

She waited for him to elaborate, but he did not, and she suppressed a sigh of frustration. He seemed somehow... farther away than he had in his starfighter. After several moments of silence, she had to ask, "Did I do something wrong?"

He started at that, finally turning to look at her. "No," he said. Surprise was the first hint of emotion she had heard from his armored form, and it made her feel a little bit better. "Why would you think that?"

"Because..." She nodded at him, searching for words to explain what she had thought blatantly obvious. "You're morphed. And you're here, but... you won't talk. I don't understand," she added helplessly.

He turned away again. "I am sorry. I should not have come."

His form shimmered briefly. She knew what he was going to do before he did it, and she put as much steel into her voice as she could. "Don't. Leave."

The figure by her window resolidified, and he was once again looking at her in surprise. Or at least, she got the distinct impression of surprise; his visor still hid his expression.

"Saryn..." She wasn't sure how much liberty their two evenings together permitted her; she might feel like she knew him, but he seemed almost a different person behind his Ranger uniform. "If I had woken you up in your starfighter at this time of night, would you just let me leave?"

He was silent for a long moment. "I would assume something was wrong," he said, his voice a little quieter than before. "I would ask you to stay until you had told me what it was."

She waited for a moment, but he didn't offer anything else. She leaned over, putting her hand under her pillow and feeling around. Her fingers closed around her Turbo key and she pulled it out, holding it up so he could see it in the dimness. "Would you want me to do it like this?"

He looked down, visor gazing at the floor so that he gave the impression of hanging his head. If she hadn't been so worried about him she might have laughed. From the Phantom Ranger it was almost comical; from Saryn it was just troubling.

At last he answered, in the same monotone as before. "If it was the only way you could do it; yes."

She tried to puzzle that out, and found she couldn't. "Saryn?" She sat a little further forward, trying to resist the temptation to get up and go to him. "Please tell me what's wrong."

There was a pause, and then he asked, "How much of this can you feel?" Only the lilt at the end of the sentence made it a question; his voice was curiously free of expression.

"How much of what?" she asked automatically. But then she remembered the whispers of... *something*, that she had felt before he made himself visible. She hadn't noticed anything like it since--but was it gone, or was she just distracted?

She closed her eyes, wondering if maybe the quiet of almost-sleep had made her more receptive to whatever kind of ESP he was talking about. She didn't think it strange to find herself suddenly believing in something she had mocked most of her life; tonight, somehow, it seemed only natural.

Warmth. It was her first impression on closing her eyes, and it didn't seem quite right considering the coolish breeze slinking in across her windowsill. It was a warmth that seemed to want to wrap itself around her, one that was completely focused on her without being intrusive in the slightest.

"It feels warm," she said aloud. She tried to frown, but it was such a pleasant feeling that she couldn't manage it. "What does that mean?"

She heard him sigh, and her eyes flew open. The sound had been so much more real this time that she almost wasn't surprised to find him standing closer, without the Ranger uniform that had protected him only a few seconds ago. The starlight from the window behind her cast strange shadows on his face, making him seem both more and less alien than his armored counterpart had been.

"It means," he said quietly, his eyes fixed on hers, "that I shouldn't be here, with you, now. And that I definitely shouldn't be unmorphed."

"But... you are," she said hesitantly, reaching for his hand. He looked down, letting her fingers take hold of his and returning the gesture seemingly without thinking. She, in turn, let him tug her gently to her feet so that they were standing face to face.

"I am," he agreed, still staring down at their clasped hands. "I shouldn't be."

"You keep saying that," she murmured, tracing the back of his hand with her thumb. It caused the strangest echo, as though she was holding his hands with both of hers, and she wondered that she had never noticed it before. "I don't think it's true."

He lifted his gaze to hers, and even in the semi-dark she could see the longing there. "It's true," he whispered. "Believe me, it's true."

Not warmth, she realized distantly. Heat. It was heat that she was feeling from him... or feeling in herself. It was hard to tell which. She wasn't entirely sure it mattered--he had come to her because something was wrong, after all, and if it was within her power to fix it then who was she to say no?

"I believe you," she murmured, lifting her free hand to his face and running her fingers along his jaw. She let her arm fall a little, resting her hand against his chest. "Just not about this."

"I told you I could control this," he said. The struggle was evident in his expression as he stared back at her. "Please don't make it any harder than it already is."

"But you want me to." She didn't have to think about it; she *knew* that was true.

Chagrin warred with the intensity on his face. "Yes," he admitted softly. "But that's no reason to do it."

His hair was falling in his eyes again, and she finally gave in to the temptation to brush it back. She heard him catch his breath, and she smiled a little. "What if I want to?"

He swallowed, not taking his eyes off of her. "Then... that would be different."

She leaned forward to kiss him gently. "Then it's different," she whispered in his ear. "Stay tonight."

He didn't respond, staring at the wall over her shoulder. "Do you know what you're asking?" he asked quietly.

"No," she said honestly. She kissed him again, feeling the heat in his mind building as it swirled around them despite his best efforts. "But I trust you. More than I've ever trusted anyone."

His gaze found hers once more, and the look of mingled awe and adoration there took her breath away. For a moment he was silent. When she opened her mouth, though, he laid one finger across her lips and whispered, "Shh. Do you feel that?"

"What?" she murmured, tilting her head a little as he stroked her cheek with his thumb.

"The moment," he said softly, simply. "Don't miss it." Without another word, he slid his fingers into her hair and leaned forward to kiss her.

The tenderness of the kiss surprised her, full of passion but without the desperate edge she had subconsciously braced herself for. She felt it sweep her up, making the kiss a part of her that was meant to be while it promised even more. She stepped closer, her hand still on his chest as he slid his arms around her, and the rest of the world fell away.

"I'm not the white knight in your fantasy
But I could be your wildest dream..."