"Andros." Kaeth pulled a chair away from the wall and dropped into it, joining his contemplation of a nearly silent Medical. "Still with us?"

Andros nodded wordlessly.

"Zhane's going to be all right," Kaeth offered, his voice a little quieter.

Andros lowered his gaze to the nearest patient bed, where his friend had fallen asleep almost as soon as Laura and the others left. Kerone had crawled onto the narrow bed with him, managing to curl up in the crook of his arm with one hand resting lightly on his chest. She, too, was fast asleep.

He managed a slight smile. "I know," he said at last, turning to look at his teammate. "What's going on?"

"Saryn's offered to take us out to the Megaship." Kaeth gave the scene in Medical a wry glance before adding, "You and I, at least. He thinks we can siphon enough power from the Delta Sun to get the generators going again, and most of his team's volunteered to help."

"How are the others?" Andros wanted to know, trying to call to mind exactly how long he'd been down here.

Kaeth leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he considered. "The Earth Rangers have power again, but you knew that. They managed to clear enough space in the zord bay for the Aquitians to bring their megazord in out of the sun. They can't work on it out there, you know; too dry." He shrugged. "Damage control seems to be running pretty smoothly so far."

From what Andros had heard of the Red Elisian Ranger, "smooth" probably wasn't much of a challenge. "Saryn's just itching for some new problem to solve, huh?"

Kaeth chuckled. "No doubt. Although I think he may be just as glad to get some of his people out of the command center."

"Really?" Andros asked, surprised. "Why?"

"Kris and Matt can't stop snipping at each other." Kaeth seemed to find the situation amusing. "Something about authority, or jurisdiction, or both; I'm not sure. And Ambassador Dimitria seems to have taken a strange dislike to Saryn's girlfriend."

Andros frowned. "No idea why?"

Kaeth shook his head. "She's not a Ranger, she's applied for Elisian citizenship, she has black hair; I don't know. It's nothing that's obvious to me, at least."

"Strange." He used Kaeth's word reflexively, glancing around Medical once more. "But if they're willing to help, I'll take it. I'll be up to the command center in a moment."

Kaeth stood, not questioning his unspoken wish for a little more solitude. The other Ranger moved toward the door, but Andros heard his tread pause briefly in the entrance. He looked up, and found Kaeth's gaze lingering on Kerone and Zhane.

"Andros," Kaeth said slowly. "Do you..."

He trailed off, and Andros followed his gaze involuntarily. He knew what the other boy meant. This wasn't the first time he'd seen his sister and his friend so comfortably intimate, and it was scenes like this that had made him think something more than friendship might be developing between them. They had always been like this, but it didn't mean at seventeen what it did at ten.

"Should I be reading anything into that?" Kaeth asked at last, giving up on disguising the question.

Andros hesitated. He knew it wasn't an opinion that Kaeth wanted so much as reassurance, from the person he assumed was closest to Zhane. But he couldn't offer anything more than the truth. "I don't know," he said honestly. "Zhane told me 'no', when I asked him the same thing."

Kaeth looked at him with a mixture of surprise and consternation. "You don't believe him?"

"I believe that he believes it," Andros said quietly. "If that's any help."

"Not really." Kaeth looked troubled. "I thought I was just being paranoid."

Andros didn't tell the other that he had tried to think the same thing, albeit for different reasons. He had been upset because he'd thought Zhane wasn't telling him something, but still, he knew the feeling Kaeth was struggling with.

"Zhane wouldn't ask anyone to be exclusive," he offered, feeling somehow guilty for speaking for his friend in this.

Kaeth caught his eye and held it. "I would," he said simply.

Andros nodded, understanding.

When he didn't say anything else, Kaeth nodded too. "I'll talk to her," he said abruptly, turning back to the door. "Thanks, Andros."

"You're welcome," Andros murmured, watching him go. He couldn't help feeling that he'd just betrayed both his sister and his best friend.

With a sigh, he glanced over at them. Neither had moved, and his gaze slid past them to Leigh and Rill. Both were sleeping, Rill with her head pillowed on her arms as she leaned against Leigh's patient bed.

He touched the comm screen, trying not to glance over his shoulder again. As Ambassador Dimitria's image appeared in front of him, he remembered what Kaeth had said about her dislike of Cassie. She might not be overly thrilled with this request, either...

"Andros," Dimitria greeted him calmly. There was the faintest hint of a question in her greeting, and he took a deep breath.

"I need to ask a personal favor," he said, keeping his voice quiet. "I'll understand if you can't or won't grant it."

She inclined her head, clearly waiting.

He looked down, trusting her to have already made the conversation private. "You asked what I saw in my vision," he told the countertop. "I can't tell you, because I don't really know. But I know it was dangerous."

He lifted his eyes to the screen again and found her waiting patiently for him to continue. "Ashley--the one in the other dimension--was hurt. Or at least, I thought she was. I didn't know, but I was afraid... I remember being afraid that she was dead." He swallowed, hoping he hadn't winced too noticeably at the word. "Is there any way that... you could find out for me?"

Dimitria seemed to consider that for a moment. He didn't know a lot about interdimensional beings. They were few, and they tended to be somewhat secretive about their abilities. But he knew that they could travel between dimensions with very little effort, and this didn't seem a trivial cause.

"Your concern does you credit," Dimitria said at last. "The Ashley from the dimension you saw is quite alive."

He blinked. "You know? Just like that?"

She smiled a little. "She was one of my Rangers in that dimension as well, although our time together was shorter than it has been here. I have been keeping an eye on her."

"She's alive," Andros repeated to himself, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief. Some of the stress of the last few days faded a little. "You couldn't--show her to me, could you?"

Dimitria distinctly hesitated. He didn't really expect her to agree; he wasn't even sure she could do it. But to his surprise, the comm screen flickered, and an image of the Megaship's Bridge appeared. He blinked as he saw himself, sitting sullenly in the pilot's chair with his sister's locket dangling from his fingers.

*I don't really look like that, do I?* he wondered. Then the thought vanished as he saw Ashley appear behind his double. She was dressed in, of all things, a Kerovan Ranger uniform, and the affectionate expression on her face made him long to trade places with the boy on the other Megaship. She dropped her hands to his shoulders, wrapping him in a hug just before the image vanished again.

"Lucky," he whispered to himself, wondering if his double had any idea how fortunate he was. How could anyone look so unhappy with Ashley's arms around him?

Dimitria was gazing silently at him, and he roused himself. "Thank you, Ambassador. That means a lot to me."

"You're welcome, Andros," she said gently. "Do you intend to accept Saryn's offer?"

He nodded, pushing himself to his feet. "Yes. I'll be right there."

Her image disappeared from the screen, and he paused in the doorway to regard his teammates. Ashley's Kerovan uniform came to mind again, and he frowned a little. What *had* happened to his friends in that other dimension? What had happened to Zhane?

For just a moment, he saw his double's troubled expression in a new light. Reluctantly, he thought, *Maybe not so lucky after all...*

***

His arm was starting to hurt where it curled around Kerone, and he tried to shift subtly enough that he wouldn't disturb her. She lifted her head as soon as he moved, and he found himself staring into a pair of perfectly awake hazel eyes. "Good morning," she murmured. "Or is it, still?"

He offered a one-shouldered shrug. "Beats me," he admitted, wondering how much of that conversation she had heard. "Hey, have you seen my right hand? Because I can't feel it."

She giggled, pushing herself up on one elbow. "You make a good pillow."

"There it is!" He made a show of picking up his right hand with his left, waving it limply at her. "Look, it still works!"

Her giggles turned to laughter, and she sat the rest of the way up. He followed suit as she took his hand in both of hers, rubbing it briskly. He winced as a prickling sensation returned to his skin. "Oh, ow," he muttered, clenching his fingers involuntarily and resisting the temptation to shake his hand free of her grasp.

"Baby," she teased. Raising his hand to her mouth, she kissed his fingers gently. "Better now?"

He lifted his gaze to hers, and her smile faded at the look on his face. "Did you hear them?" he asked quietly.

She tilted her head, looking for all the world as though she didn't know what he was talking about. "Andros and Dimitria?"

"Andros and Kaeth," he corrected, watching for some flicker of understanding.

For a moment, none was forthcoming. Then, suddenly, she looked down at their clasped hands and shrugged uncomfortably. "Yes," she said in a small voice.

"And?" he prompted, when she said nothing else. *He* certainly didn't know what to say.

She looked up at him from under her eyelashes. "Kaeth's going to be mad at you now," she said, her voice still oddly childlike. "I'm sorry about that."

"Forget Kaeth." He stared at her intently, trying to see past her expression. "Remember when we were... practicing?"

She nodded hesitantly. Neither of them said anything for a long moment, and then, slowly, she lifted her hand. Her eyes wandered across his face, tracing a path that her fingers followed lightly. She was just barely touching his skin, and before he realized it he was leaning into the caress.

She tilted her head to the side, and he had a moment to wonder if she was going to let him kiss her. Then her mouth brushed his, and he closed his eyes. She kissed him again, just as softly, and he held absolutely still, afraid that if he moved at all she would pull away.

When she did, he couldn't help a rush of disappointment. He found her gazing back at him when he opened his eyes, and she whispered, "It was never Kaeth I was kissing."

He couldn't say it had never crossed his mind. They had kissed a hundred times before, sometimes in fun, sometimes for practice, and it hadn't escaped his notice that she had grown up to be the most beautiful girl he knew. But they had known each other for longer than he could remember, and she was Andros' *sister*...

"Why didn't you say something?" he murmured.

She sighed. "Because it was so perfect! I could say anything, do anything with you, and I knew that if I told you things would change."

"Maybe," he said slowly, remembering Andros' words. "I believe that *he* believes it." *He knows me better than I do,* he thought, amused. Hadn't that always been the way... "Maybe not."

She gave him that under the eyelashes look again, and he didn't miss the hope that flickered across her face. He had to smile, and her lips started to curve in a delighted grin of her own. Then she pounced on him, kissing him hard enough to make his senses scream as her hair fell in his face and her fingers ran across his skin.

He put his arms around her blindly, feeling her giggle as she pushed him backward. "Do you love me, Zhane?" she whispered, her breathless expression only inches from his as she gazed down at him.

He could only nod, sliding his hand around behind her head and pulling her close enough to kiss again. When she tried to turn her head away, he rested his forehead against hers and breathed, "I've always loved you. It's funny that it took Kaeth to make me see it."

Her arms trembled a little, braced on either side of him. "Did it?"

He slid his hands up her sides, coming to rest under her arms so that he was half holding her up. "He doesn't appreciate you," he said softly. "Not enough. You weren't even going out until yesterday, and already he wants you to give up everyone else in your life. But for Andros it's enough just to know that somewhere Ashley's alive and happy, whether it's on the Megaship or here on Earth. That's a different kind of love."

Kerone bit her lip, giving her hair a token toss over her shoulder. It promptly slid forward again, and he let go of her with one hand to smooth it back. "Do you want me to be happy, Zhane?" she asked quietly.

He smiled up at her, seeing her flushed cheeks and sincere expression for the first time. She was looking at *him* now, and it was a wonderful feeling. "More than anything."

That beautiful smile graced her features again. "Then kiss me," she murmured, leaning down and covering his mouth with hers.

He did, more than a little awed by the feeling as her slight body pressed against his. It wasn't the first time they had been so close, but it was the first time he had let himself give into the sensation. It was the first time he had felt her fingers clench on his t-shirt, or seen her eyes without a hint of laughter in them as she kissed him...

He didn't know how long they might have held on that first time they were allowed to lose themselves in each other if it hadn't been for a gentle cough from somewhere nearby. Kerone rolled off of him immediately, looking charmingly tousled as she struggled to sit up. He reached out to catch her when she almost lost her balance, and from a couple of patient beds down, Rill chuckled.

"I didn't mean to ruin the moment," she said quietly, her chin propped on her hand as she watched them. "But some of us are trying to sleep here."

He shot her a sheepish grin, and he felt Kerone squirm. "Rill..." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her bite her lip. "Let me tell Andros, okay?"

"You may not have to," Rill said with a smile. "But I will, of course."

"'Us'," Zhane corrected, looking over at Kerone. "Let *us* tell Andros. You're not telling him without me there."

She poked him in the shoulder. "You should talk! You can't tell him without me, either. Promise!"

He wrapped an arm around her waist and she leaned back against him, tilting her head back to rest on his shoulder. She was almost looking at him upside-down, and he grinned at her insistent expression. "I promise," he agreed, kissing her temple lightly. Across the room, he saw Rill smiling again as she laid her head back down on her arms.