"I'm fine," he told Linnse. "You saw the scans yourself. There is no reason I cannot resume patrol immediately--there's nothing wrong with me!"

"Then do it for Jenna," Linnse snapped. "The Power she used to heal you had to come from somewhere! She's exhausted, physically and emotionally, after that suicidal stunt of yours. Give her a break and let the Eltarans cover the next rotation."

He glared at her, but there was nothing he could say when she put it like that. He wouldn't ask Jenna to take on burdens he was willing to shoulder himself, even if she would do it without hesitation. Linnse had used that against him with no hint of remorse.

So he found himself confined to the recuperating wing of the medical ward long into the night, staring up at the ceiling while Jenna slept at his side. He tried not to feel anything, not to let his consciousness wander past the boundaries of the room, but it was a losing battle. Cassandra was awake, and her restlessness plagued him like a living thing.

Finally, he extracted himself from the bed with more care than was probably necessary, given his lover's unconscious state. Linnse had been right to pull her from rotation. She was so deeply asleep that her mind might as well have been somewhere else entirely while her body recovered from the stresses of the day.

He had barely made it through the doorway when he heard the lift at the other end of the hallway. The lights were piercingly bright after the artificial darkness of their room, but he didn't need them to know who was stepping out of that lift. He should turn around, close the door behind him, lose himself in the newsnets if he truly couldn't sleep.

Another vow broken, he thought, catching her eye down the long, empty corridor.

Then Linnse was there, drawing her attention away momentarily as she intercepted the visitor. He should have taken the distraction, used it to turn back, slip away, or at least conceal the fact that he was nearby. Instead he found himself drifting down the hallway toward them, and he didn't miss Linnse's surprise when she caught sight of him.

"Saryn," she scolded, clearly torn between her visitor and him. "You're supposed to be sleeping!"

He couldn't take his eyes off of Cassandra. "I'm not the only one."

She shrugged a little, her gaze locked with his. "Andros sent me," she said, as though that was all the explanation she needed. "To check on you. And Jenna."

"Did he." He didn't bother to make it a question; he knew the answer already. "Thank you for your concern, but I am well. Jenna is sleeping."

"And you're not." She paid no attention to Linnse, now watching with avid interest as they utterly failed to make their encounter plausible. "Insomnia?"

His smile was humorless as he drank in every aspect of her presence. Her voice, her appearance... the sense of something just beyond his reach standing so very close. "That's one word for it," he agreed quietly.

The lift hummed, announcing an imminent arrival, and Linnse got their attention with a snap of her fingers. Indicating both of them, she pointed at the door to her office. Saryn held her gaze for an interminable second, and she returned his stare with an expectant look of her own.

He obeyed without a word, his heart sinking even as he heard Cassandra close the door behind them. It wasn't that he didn't think Linnse would keep their secret. It was the fact that she knew when all they had done was look at each other.

"It's getting worse, isn't it," Cassandra murmured. From the sound of her voice, she hadn't moved from the door. "This... thing, between us. It's getting stronger."

"Yes," he whispered, staring down at the desk in front of him. Swallowing, he managed to speak in an almost normal tone of voice. "I am sorry, but it will continue despite our best efforts."

"Are you doing this?" she asked, her voice curiously detached. "Did you start it on purpose?"

"No." No. "You don't know how much I wish I could stop it."

"What is it? Why do I know... what you're doing? Where you are, who you're with, even when I'm not with you? Why do I feel like I am you, sometimes?"

"We..." He found, after he had begun, that he couldn't say it. "There is such a thing as an empathic bond," he said quietly. "Among my people, it happens infrequently and spontaneously."

He wanted to stop there, but she had to know. "It is considered the... the strongest emotional bond two people can share. People who--" His voice broke, and it was barely audible when he continued. "We believe that people who experience such a thing are bound beyond this life."

"Bound," she echoed. "In... a good way?"

He closed his eyes. "I love you," he whispered, taking some comfort in the darkness. "You know this, and I can no longer pretend otherwise. I am... sorry for what it's doing to our lives."

There was a chime, and the door slid open a moment later. He heard a pause that must have been Linnse assessing their postures. Finally she offered, "You're all clear, if you want to take this somewhere else."

He turned, careful to keep from catching Cassandra's eye. "I will be going back to sleep," he told Linnse stiffly. "Thank you for your--intervention."

"Saryn." Linnse stopped him before he could take more than a single step toward the door. She lifted one finger and tapped her temple slowly.

He stared at her in shock. If he was projecting now... He couldn't even tell. He tried desperately to contain his own feelings, unsure of where the leak was and even less sure how to stop it. "Better?"

She shook her head. "Maybe--you shouldn't go back to Jenna right away," she said carefully. "Even I can..." She glanced at Cassandra pointedly before looking back at him. "Well."

He followed her gaze helplessly. He wanted her, and now not only could he not admit it aloud, he couldn't even think it in his own mind. But there was no way not to. What was he supposed to do if he couldn't maintain the most basic mental shielding?

Everything came crashing down on him at once: Cassandra, Jenna, Cassandra... the bond and his rapidly deteriorating control. First Zhane, and now Linnse. It wasn't them--it was him. He couldn't do this.

He lifted his hands to his head, pressing his palms against his temples as he squeezed his eyes shut. Cassandra! The anguished mental cry was involuntary and meant for only one person. Unfortunately, what he meant didn't seem to carry much weight with the universe anymore.

She had caught his wrists before he realized she was there, pulling his hands away from his face and forcing him to open his eyes. "Saryn," she whispered urgently, searching his gaze. "It's okay. I'm right here."

"I know," he whispered, staring back at her. He stood frozen, not daring to take her hands but not strong enough to push them away. "I know. That's the problem."

"I'd trust my teammates with it," Linnse was saying, seated on the edge of her own desk and tapping her foot absently against the floor. "But none of them are empaths. There's a healer in the capitol, but--"

"No." Arms folded, he was hunched disconsolately in the chair by the door. He knew he probably looked pathetic, but he didn't care enough to do anything about it. "I will not go to an outsider with this."

"Well, you have to do something," Linnse pointed out. Her tone wasn't exactly sympathetic, but at least her usual asperity was dulled a little. "The only other person I can think of is Zhane."

He grimaced, eyes fastened on the foot she was tapping on the floor. "The day I ask Zhane for help in anything--"

"Is the day your empathic birthright kicks in and screws you over," Linnse interrupted. "Born on the wrong planet, Saryn. It happens. You cope."

He didn't answer.

It was Cassandra who finally broke the silence, speaking tentatively from her position on the other side of Linnse's desk. As far from Saryn as she could get. "Why Zhane?" she wanted to know, glancing uncertainly from him to Linnse. He couldn't tell if her question had more to do with Linnse's suggestion or his reaction.

Linnse just shrugged, but he could feel her eyes on him without looking up. "Zhane's the only non-Elisian Ranger that displays any empathic tendencies at all. He doesn't use it, not consciously, but he does live with it."

"Insufferably," Saryn muttered under his breath.

"Saryn doesn't like him," Linnse added, and the amusement in her voice was unmistakable. "He only puts up with him because of Andros. Or so he says."

"You're jealous," Cassandra blurted out.

Saryn's head jerked up. Her dark eyes locked with his, and she frowned prettily. "You wish you were more like him? What does Zhane have that you don't?"

He glared at her, and only then did she seem to realize what she'd done. "I would appreciate it," he said sharply, biting off each word, "if you could refrain from saying everything I think out loud."

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Linnse, for once displaying the slightest amount of tact, pretended she had not heard. "I think you should talk to him," she told Saryn, stilling her foot against the floor at last. "There's no one else."

She stopped abruptly, but Saryn heard the words she didn't say. There was no one else--except Jenna.

Zhane held up a hand instinctively, squinting against the bright light of the hallway as he blinked out of the darkness. "Saryn?" His voice was rough with sleep and he didn't look at all amused. "What do you want?"

"I... require your assistance," Saryn muttered, staring steadily at the doorframe. "I apologize for disturbing you at this hour."

Zhane yawned, dropping his hand to his mouth and closing his eyes for a moment. "Hang on a second," he said, eyes still closed. "I'll be right out."

There was movement in the shadows behind him, and Saryn didn't miss the flicker of metal as Andros joined him in the doorway. "I'm up," the Red Ranger said quietly, putting one hand on Zhane's shoulder. "You want to come in?"

He had known that anything he said to Zhane, he would be saying to Andros too. Nonetheless, he almost refused. He valued Andros' opinion above Zhane's, and it would be more difficult to admit weakness to two than one no matter who they were.

He swallowed hard. "Thank you," he said stiffly, stepping into the darkened room.

The lights came up part way, casting a diffuse radiance over the room as the door slid shut behind him. He heard a soft click as Andros discreetly set his blaster down on the counter. Zhane slumped on the couch, following his lover with his eyes.

"Didn't mean to wake you." The Silver Ranger addressed Andros as though Saryn wasn't there. "I thought I was quieter than that."

"Just dozing," Andros answered with a sigh. He dropped onto the couch beside Zhane, indicating that Saryn should take the chair against the adjacent wall. "Couldn't really sleep anyway."

Zhane frowned over at Saryn as though it was his fault, and he found himself echoing Andros' sigh. Didn't they have enough problems of their own without him rousing them in the middle of their night? What did he expect them to do, anyway?

"I guess it's going around," Zhane remarked. When Saryn looked up, he realized Zhane was still watching him. "Something on your mind, Saryn?"

"Too much," he murmured, knowing he was no different than any other in that respect. "I am... I have been having--difficulty." He cast about for the words, wishing he had thought this out more thoroughly. "I find I can not... keep my feelings to myself."

Andros absorbed this without the slightest surprise, but Zhane's stare was disconcertingly intense. "This is an empath thing?" he asked bluntly. "Jenna would know more about that than I would."

"I can not ask Jenna," he told the wall behind them. Why was he here? Why had he come, and more than that, why wasn't he leaving? This could accomplish nothing.

"She is..." He couldn't stop. "She is part of the problem," he admitted reluctantly.

"If you were projecting something that bothered Jenna," Zhane said slowly, "she'd help you stop. So you must be projecting something that you don't want her to know about."

Saryn didn't answer.

Zhane seemed to consider that for a moment, and Andros leaned back against the couch cushions as though he was too tired to sit up. He put one foot up on the table in front of them, deliberately casual, but Saryn knew he was analyzing every word. He could almost see the energy flickering between the two Rangers despite their lack of physical contact.

"Saryn," Zhane said at last. "What do you expect me to do? Us? Me? Is it me you were looking for?"

"It was," Saryn said with a sigh. "I suppose I ask the impossible, but... I do not even know what is wrong, just that I must fix it."

Zhane was frowning again. "If this is about Jenna," he said carefully, "I think you're going to have to talk to her about it. And if it's about empathy... well, I don't really know why you're asking me."

Andros kicked him, gently but with no effort at subtlety. He gave Zhane a reproving look when his lover glanced over at him, and Zhane held his hands out helplessly. "What? So I have 'empathic tendencies'. What does that mean? I can't even tell, so what good is it?"

"You're fortunate," Saryn muttered. He felt Zhane's sharp look, but couldn't bring himself to catch the Silver Ranger's eye.

"Maybe," Zhane said after a pause. "But I bet there are advantages."

Andros didn't quite manage to conceal his smirk, though he steadfastly avoided Zhane's gaze. It was clearly a conversation they'd had before, and Saryn felt a pang of envy for their close and easy bond. They communicated without words, sometimes without any outward expression at all, and there was no self-consciousness in the way they understood and depended on each other.

Zhane glanced back at him when he didn't answer, his face sobering. "Saryn... is there something we can do? Because you know we'll help if we can. But I have no idea what's going on, let alone what to do about it."

Before he could answer, a noise from the back of the room made him tense. Andros didn't move, though, and Zhane just craned his neck around to look. "Can't sleep either?" he called softly.

One of Cassandra's teammates stepped out of the shadows.

"Hey, Ash," Andros said without looking around. "Sorry to wake you up."

"No," she said with a sigh. She came forward hesitantly, gaze flicking from them to him and back again. "Zhane's right, I couldn't sleep. Am I--interrupting?"

He shook his head, not even waiting for her to catch his eye. He was aware of both Andros and Zhane glancing in his direction, but he was too surprised for anything but polite denial. The Yellow Ranger... Ashley? Ashley Hammond. He hadn't known she was staying with them.

She had come out of the far room, through a door that had once led to their meditation lounge. She was dressed in pajamas, arms wrapped around a green sweatshirt that was clearly older than what she wore now. He couldn't fathom its origin, but it seemed to give her some comfort.

"Come on," Zhane said, reaching out to her. All the impatience was gone from his voice, and he was as quiet and gentle as Saryn had ever seen him. He radiated something soothing, something that seemed to touch all of them but had an immediate effect on Ashley.

She smiled a little, transferring her sweatshirt to one arm and putting her hand out to take his. She walked around the end of the couch, collapsing on the cushions when Zhane pulled her down between him and Andros. She let Zhane draw her into a loose embrace, her head on his shoulder and her bare feet in Andros' lap. Andros patted them absently, the same contented smile on his face.

It was Zhane, Saryn realized abruptly. Studying the scene, he wondered that they couldn't see it. Zhane might never have heard a word about empathy before coming to Eltare, but he had an unconscious ability to project and presumably to receive emotion. Consciously or not, he was using it right now.

Maybe that was his answer. Zhane responded to those around him without trying, without thinking about it. Saryn could work as hard as he would, and still it would get him nowhere: empathic control was rooted in one's own emotions. It was something he had not had to acknowledge for years, since his own sense had been repressed and unused. Now, though, it was shuddering back to awareness, and it brought with it feelings he couldn't remember how to handle.

Ashley's eyes closed, for just a moment, and he saw Andros catch Zhane's gaze over her head. The look that passed between them spoke of a peace that carried them through these troubled days. They had always had something no one else could touch, and yet here was Ashley, snuggled between them and apparently unaware of the impossible ease with which they had accepted her into their lives.

No questions, no jealousy... they wanted what they wanted, and none of them needed anymore justification than that. He couldn't begrudge them this fleeting tranquility. But there was no way to silence the chorus of "if only"s in his mind.