"Hey man, it's me. I won't be in school today. Tell the parents something came up. Yeah, I will. You too. Later."

Carlos snapped his morpher shut and grabbed his backpack, ducking out of the room before the doors had finished sliding open. He didn't meet anyone else on his way to the holding bay, but he couldn't say he was surprised. He was considerably later than usual, and he figured he only had about two minutes before they sent someone looking for him.

Cassie greeted him the moment he walked through the door. "Hey, Sleepyhead!"

"Ashley got you breakfast," TJ added, sliding his dishes back into the Synthetron. "Let's go."

Carlos made no move to join them as they gathered by the door. "I'm not going today. I just came to see you guys off. Don't get into too much trouble."

"Very funny," Ashley said, swinging her backpack over her shoulder. "Come on, Carlos. Only three more days!"

"I'm serious." He folded his arms, well aware that he had just become the center of attention. "There's something else I have to do."

"Carlos," TJ began. "You know we trust your judgement, man, but missing school to save the world is one thing. We can't just--"

"I know," Carlos interrupted. "I don't need the lecture, all right? School, responsibility, graduation, I know it. Some things are just more important."

"Sure, but can't it wait a few hours?" Ashley wanted to know. "I mean, do you really have to--"

"I don't need advice on what can wait from you, Ash." It was brusquer than he had meant it to be, but it was the truth. "I don't need to hear from TJ about priorities, either, and I definitely don't need to hear from Cassie about skipping school. So just let me be irresponsible for a good cause one day out of the year, okay?"

There was a brief silence. Ashley frowned, and Cassie lifted one hand slightly. Whether she meant she was staying out of it or giving him a "whatever" gesture for the skipping school comment, he couldn't tell.

Finally, TJ just shrugged. "All right. Good luck, man."

He nodded wordlessly. He was probably going to need it.

***

The lift door was slower to open than usual, but she couldn't say she was surprised. It was just that kind of day--anything that could get in her way did, and anything that could slow her down more would. It wasn't that things were going wrong, it was just that they had somehow become frustratingly tedious. She could almost suspect her own teammates of conspiring against her.

The control room, at least, was deserted when she entered. She could be thankful for that. Under normal circumstances she wouldn't have avoided anyone's company, but today... If they had tried, her friends couldn't have done a better job of keeping her busy with things that were utterly trivial.

She made it to her room without any further delays--not that the ones she had already encountered weren't enough. She had been trying to get back here to change ever since her meeting with the SFAs, but things kept coming up. She wouldn't willingly go back to the rotating alert status the war had forced on them all, but sometimes she did wonder if she had gotten more work done that way.

She input her code without paying much attention, but when the door didn't open she frowned. She tried again, mildly surprised that she could have gotten something like that wrong. This time there was only a brief pause before the door slid open to admit her.

She was stepping inside, making a mental note to check on the power grid later, when the state of her room registered.

It was shadowed. That penetrated before anything else, mostly because her room was never shadowed. Dark sometimes, dim others, but shadowed? The bioluminescent coral wasn't bright enough to cast shadows, and the glow of the overhead lighting was pervasive no matter how low a setting it was on.

Nonetheless, she was standing in shadow and surrounded by tiny flickering flames. Candles had been set on every available surface, filling the room with a gentle but alien light. Something sparkled on her bed, and she didn't have to look twice to know that someone had laid sealace on her pillow.

Someone. Her eyelids stung, and she blinked hard.

There was a whisper of sound from behind her and her fingers clenched around her blaster. She whirled, weapon raised, knowing that if he touched her she wouldn't be able to keep herself from doing something stupid.

Carlos didn't flinch. "A little slow today, are we?" he inquired. "Eight seconds... Last time I didn't even get to start counting."

"What do you want?" she demanded. It didn't sound quite as forceful as she'd meant it to, and thinking of the last time she'd pulled her blaster on him here didn't help. She only just managed to keep her grip steady as she glared back at him.

"To talk to you," he said, his gaze locked on hers. "You've been avoiding me."

"So?" How had he even gotten in here? She'd changed her lock code two weeks ago.

"So you make it damned hard for a guy to apologize, Aura!" He was glaring now too, and she took some small amount of satisfaction from that. "Don't you people believe in leaving a 'let's talk it over' number when you walk out of someone's life?"

She frowned warily. For a moment she wished he had worn his flight suit; grey didn't look half as good on him as black. "A what?"

He actually smiled, his anger vanishing as quickly as it had come. "Are you going to shoot me, or do you want to give me a chance to explain?"

She didn't move. "I haven't decided yet."

He shrugged, as though it didn't matter to him either way. "All right. But if you shoot me, you won't get to hear your song."

She narrowed her eyes. "I don't want to hear a song," she informed him. "I want to know what you're doing here. You're trespassing on secure grounds."

"And you just pulled a weapon on a fellow Ranger," he pointed out reasonably. "I won't tell if you don't."

She sighed, letting her blaster fall to her side. "What do you *want*, Carlos?"

"I told you," he reminded her. "I want to talk to you. I want to apologize. And I want to play a song for you."

He pressed a button on the object in his hand, and she recognized his tape player as he set it down. "Cassie got me a copy of this song," he said, almost conversationally. "I figured if you wouldn't listen to me, maybe you'd listen to someone else."

"I'm listening to you now," she informed him, trying not to shiver at the sound coming from the tinny speaker. It was low and soft, despite the sound quality, and not at all the kind of thing he usually listened to. "I don't see why you have to play these games."

He didn't answer, forcing her to listen or keep talking.

She swallowed. She wasn't going to like this song at all; she could tell. "If you have something to say," she snapped, "say it yourself."

"I have," he told her evenly. "I'm sorry, Aura. What do I have to do to convince you?"

"What are you sorry for?" she demanded, trying not to listen. "You already told me that you don't know what you did."

"I'm sorry for hurting you." He looked a little surprised that she could even ask. "I'm sorry that something I did made us both this unhappy, and I wish you'd tell me what it was so I could keep from doing it again."

"It wasn't something you did," she muttered, looking away.

"It was something I didn't do," he finished. When she glanced up in surprise, he shrugged self-deprecatingly. "I talked to Cetaci."

She tried not to sigh. She should have expected that. It had probably been only a matter of time before her teammates got involved anyway.

"Don't look so exasperated," Carlos chided. "It wasn't exactly easy. She must have given me the 'mind your own business' lecture three times in fifteen minutes. I don't know if the fact that I actually got anything out of her says more about her stubbornness or mine."

She almost smiled.

"Was that a smile?" Carlos took a single step forward, still watching her intently despite the teasing tone of his voice. "Man, that's the best thing I've seen in weeks."

She did smile then, turning her head in a futile effort to keep him from seeing it. For a moment, there was only the sound of his song playing softly in the candlelight.

She folded her arms, glancing sideways at him. She shifted uncomfortably when she caught his eye, and she sighed again. "You didn't have to do all this, Carlos."

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I did."

He reached out to turn the tape player off, then added, "Oh, and I brought you a present."

She bit her lip to keep from smiling again, and she had to ask, "All this just to get my attention?"

"Is it working?" he replied immediately.

She hesitated, but he already knew the answer. "Yes," she admitted.

"Then yes," he said, smiling. "Here."

He held out a small plastic container, and she couldn't help giggling. "Raspberries?"

"Do you know how hard they are to find this time of year?" he retorted. "You had to go and get addicted to them in the middle of the winter..."

"It was your fault," she responded automatically, but he just shrugged. "Thank you," she added, more quietly. She didn't just mean for the raspberries.

"You don't have to thank me," he said, studying her. "Aura... I love you."

She turned away, fussing with the container as she set it down. "I know."

"Do you?" He didn't sound surprised, he just sounded... steady. As though he had thought this out so thoroughly that nothing she could say would catch him unprepared.

"Unless you've been lying to me since last fall," she said, still not looking at him. "Yes."

"Then why isn't that enough?"

"It is," she said with a sigh. "It should be. It's just... How much did Cetaci tell you?"

"Not much," he answered dryly. "You know how well the two of us get along."

"I'm a little surprised you went to her at all," she murmured, amused by his tone.

"So am I," he said, a smile in his voice. "It was Saryn's idea."

She looked up at that, though she couldn't quite bring herself to meet his gaze. "Saryn?"

"Yeah." He sounded rueful this time. "Just forget about having secrets around here; that's what I've decided. There isn't a single person who doesn't know something about this."

"Except the person who matters most," she said softly, looking down at the table again.

There was a moment of silence, and then, "Did I not ask the right questions? Or did I just not hear the answers? Tell me where I screwed up, Aura."

She swallowed, pushing the plastic container a little further away. "You didn't screw up."

"I must have," he insisted. "If I hadn't, we'd still be together."

"It isn't always about you, Carlos!" The outburst was enough to make him flinch, and she was glad to see he wasn't quite as calm as he appeared. "Why do you assume this is something you can fix?" she continued, pressing her advantage. "Do you think saying you're sorry will change the way I feel? It isn't you I'm mad at!"

"Then who?" he demanded. "Or what? All I want is to know what's going on! I just want you to talk to me, to trust me not to judge you! Let me help!"

She hugged her arms close to her chest and turned away, willing herself not to let the tears out. She felt his hand on her shoulder as she stared fixedly at the wall, and there was a period of maybe a second and a half when she could have shrugged him off. She could have walked away with her dignity and her secrets and maybe even his good opinion...

But not him. She couldn't keep him if she didn't at least try, the way he was doing now. And if she didn't have him, she had a sinking suspicion that she would never reclaim her heart, either.

So she let him wrap his arms around her and tried to keep her hands from trembling as she laid them over his. She didn't resist when he tugged her closer, until she was leaning back against his chest the way she had so many times before. She sighed without meaning to, and could only hope he didn't notice.

"Talk to me?" he whispered, his breath tickling her ear.

She shifted a little, but he didn't ease his grip on her. "I broke my vow," she murmured, swallowing.

She could almost hear him frown. "What vow?"

He was never going to understand this. "I was six," she said softly. "I remember asking my mother why my friends made fun of me for knowing what they thought. She said that anyone who didn't accept me for who I was wasn't really my friend...

"She also said that no one could make fun of me if I didn't let them. She said that unless I let them mean something, they were just words. So I promised her I'd never let anyone make me feel ashamed of who I was."

"Pretty big promise for a six-year-old," Carlos observed, his voice as quiet as hers.

She sighed. "I had no idea," she admitted wistfully. "I've broken that promise many times since."

"Join the club," Carlos informed her.

She stiffened, but he wouldn't let her turn to look at him.

"Hey," he said quickly, not missing her aborted motion. "I just mean I understand--I'm a minority too, you know. It's not such a big deal in Angel Grove, but there are places in my own country where I wouldn't be at the top of anyone's guest list."

She frowned a little, but his words brought back memories of an incident that had puzzled her for some time.

"You do understand," she said, making it more of a question than a statement.

"I don't remember when I first realized it mattered," he answered, resting his head gently against hers. "But I do remember being self-conscious--at first I was embarrassed, I think, and then, for a long time, I was proud... I had a lot of Hispanic friends in junior high, and we stuck together. We were proud that we were different; we thought it made us special.

"I moved to Angel Grove just before I started high school," he continued. His tone was unusually contemplative, and she found herself relaxing. She always liked hearing him think out loud.

"Ashley was one of my first and best friends," he was saying. "Eventually, I started to get over the whole superiority thing. Like I said, being Hispanic isn't so unusual there. I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but it isn't that big a deal to me anymore. It's just who I am, like... being tall, or liking soccer. I can't change it, and none of my friends treat me any differently because of it."

She waited, but he didn't say anything else. "You have good friends," she murmured at last.

She didn't realize how that sounded until he hugged her tighter and said firmly, "So do you."

"I know," she said hastily. "That is not what I meant. It's only that... I suppose Cetaci told you about Cen." Even after so long, it was hard to say his name without feeling something.

"A little." The distaste was evident in his voice, and she smiled inadvertently. "Enough to know that he's an idiot with the IQ of grass."

She tried to repress a giggle. "Some of that is Cetaci's presentation, I think. He's not such a bad person--or he wasn't, when I first knew him."

"People change," Carlos said darkly.

"Yes," she whispered, staring blindly at the wall in front of her. "And I tell myself that he did, because if I fell for someone who was ashamed of me from the beginning..."

"No one in their right mind could ever be ashamed of you." Carlos' whispered reassurance was as fierce as it was sincere. "I can tell you from personal experience that anyone who really knows you is amazed you know they exist, let alone that you want to spend time with them."

She tried to smile again. "It's sweet of you to say that," she murmured, still staring at the wall. How could she tell him that sometimes he made her feel exactly the way Cen had, toward the end?

"It's true," he insisted, turning her around to face him. "And I'm going to prove it. Are you ready to go?"

She frowned in confusion, trying to remember if he had said anything when he first arrived. "To go where?"

He gave her a mysterious smile. "I'm not telling. You're just going to have to trust me."

It was their standard adventure disclaimer, and despite the recent past she was seriously tempted to take him up on it. But... "My shift is only half over," she reminded him. "I can't be out of contact."

His smiled widened. "After this morning? Believe me, they want us gone. Cetaci's already given you the rest of the day off."

"This morning?" she repeated suspiciously.

He gestured around her room. "You don't think I did all this myself, do you? And what was the deal with locking me out, anyway? Cetaci had to override your code just to get us in. Delphinius helped me set things up in here... Cestria and Billy had the unenviable task of keeping you busy."

She just stared at him. "You... but they--"

"They were worried about you," he finished. "And I finally wore them down. I think they were sick of me asking about you every day." This last he said with a grin, but he wasn't joking. She could see that much in his eyes.

"I was going to change," she said at last, for lack of any better answer. She wasn't sure how she felt about her teammates' part in this... she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about Carlos' part in it, if it came to that.

"So change," he said, the grin still in his voice.

She looked up, and he had such an expectant smirk on his face that she pointed at the door. "Get out!"

He did, but he did it with a look of theatrical disappointment that left her shaking her head in wonder. He couldn't possibly have been serious. And where could he be taking her, anyway?

***

They could have teleported from Aquitar to Earth. It wasn't like Aura couldn't tell where they were going from the coordinates he gave Mega V2. And even before Zordon had left for Eltare, he had stopped hinting that Billy's boosted teleportation system could be put to better uses than shuttling commuter traffic back and forth.

They could have teleported, but they didn't. He knew Aura was curious, and he was nervous as anything, but more than getting there he just wanted to spend time with her. Having her listen to him again, talk to him, and above all, smile, felt better than he'd dreamed. He hadn't even realized how much he'd missed her until now.

He didn't bother checking in with DECA when they arrived--there was no need, and she wouldn't have let Aura on board anyway. According to some warped sense of computer logic, Kerone was a full time Astro Ranger, and for some inexplicable reason Saryn qualified as a teammate as well. But they were the only exceptions she made to Andros' "security level three".

So they appeared instead in the Vargas household's kitchen, a place Aura was relatively familiar with by now. It was deserted, for which he was thankful. His mother, at least, bent over backward to make Aura feel welcome, but he doubted that he would be as popular today. His parents probably weren't going to count making up with his girlfriend as the kind of emergency that warranted skipping school, and now would be exactly the wrong time to get grounded.

"Here," he said, grabbing a water bottle from the refrigerator and tossing it to her. He took one for himself too, though it was more to be polite than anything else. She knew as well as he did that he'd end up giving it to her before the afternoon was over. "I think that's all we'll need... are you ready?"

"I could better answer that question if I knew where we were going," she pointed out, but she looked intrigued.

"I know," he admitted. What he really wanted to know was whether *he* was ready. But what he was about to do was the whole point of today, and he wasn't going to turn back now. He gave her what he hoped was a nonchalant grin as he headed for the door. "You'll find out in a minute."

She gave him a puzzled look as he held the door open for her, and he felt his grin widening. "After you," he told her. It was already worth it, for the expression on her face as she stepped out into the midday sunshine was priceless.

"Now," he continued, as he pulled the door shut behind them. "To do this properly, we should take my dad's car. Unfortunately, he was inconsiderate enough to need it today, so we'll have to roll the windows down in mine and pretend."

She had no idea what he was talking about, he could tell. At that moment, though, he caught sight of one of his neighbors getting out of her car. He froze for a fraction of a second, then lifted his hand and waved. "Hi, Mrs. Stuart!"

Aura looked at him as though he was crazy, but Lynne Stuart's reaction was even better. She waved back, smiling briefly in their direction as she hurried toward her front door, then stopped in her tracks and did a classic double take.

Carlos just smiled. She stared at them for a moment, then, to his surprise, waved again and turned quickly back toward her house.

He glanced over at Aura, and found her looking back and forth as though there might have been a conversation she missed. He shrugged, walking around the front of his SUV and unlocking the door for her. "Shall we go?" he offered.

"Carlos," she said slowly. She made no move to get in the car. "What are you doing?"

"Taking my girlfriend for a ride," he answered immediately. "What does it look like?"

She just looked at him, and he made a show of chagrin. "Sorry... should I have said 'my ex-girlfriend'?"

Her lips quirked, but she didn't answer right away. She waited just long enough to make him worry, and then shook her head slightly. "No..."

She didn't sound totally convinced, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. "Then let's go. I told you to trust me, remember?"

That did it; he could see it in her eyes. There was an unspoken rule between them that once one of them offered a surprise and the other took them up on it, they weren't allowed to question. They either trusted completely or not at all, and Aura climbed into the passenger seat without another word.

He rolled her window down before he closed her door, grinning at her as he did so. She smiled, a little uncertainly, in return. They were really going to do this, and she was starting to suspect what "this" was.

He banged on the hood as he walked around to his side, then leaned under to make sure Goof wasn't still sleeping there anyway. The driveway under his car was cat-free, and he swung into the driver's seat and started the engine without another thought.

"Your window," Aura reminded him, as they backed out of the driveway.

He chuckled. "Yeah, I was getting to that; thanks." He rolled his window all the way down and reached for the radio. "Are you in a country or pop mood today?"

"Country," she said immediately, though he suspected she chose more for the sake of choosing than anything else.

"Country it is." He pushed the REB preset, and the sounds of "Cat Country" filled the car. He laughed again as he recognized the song.

It was a new song, and probably not one Aura had ever caught him listening to before, but she smiled when he did and at that moment he knew he was doing the right thing. To have her with him, no matter the uproar it caused or what other people might think, was nothing less than the best the universe had to offer.

As they pulled into the dojo parking lot, he turned the radio down a little and pointed out the window at the "Quest Karate" sign. "This is Rocky's dojo; you remember it from Halloween."

He saw her nod out of he corner of his eye, and he pulled into a parking space near the door. She got out as he did, and he added, "I thought we'd just stop in and say 'hi'... the team hangs out here a lot, and it's become sort of a Ranger stronghold. Even the ones who've moved away visit when they're in town."

"Is it... just Rangers?" she asked carefully.

"Nope." He reached for her hand, relieved when she didn't protest. "It's run by Rangers, mostly, and some friends, but it's open to everyone."

It was also mostly deserted this early in the afternoon. Angel Grove as a whole had a greater than average interest in the martial arts, thanks mostly to the influence of the Power Rangers. There were often students in the dojo as soon as school let out, working out individually or sparring under the supervision of whatever sempei happened to be present.

Now, with more than an hour before even the high school students were free, it was just Emily and someone Carlos vaguely recognized from one of Gabe's classes. Gabe's student didn't pause in his bo kata, but Emily greeted them from the weight machine as soon as they walked through the door.

"Hi, Carlos," she called with a smile. "Looking for anyone in particular?"

"No, we're just passing through," he said, glancing around to make sure he hadn't missed anyone. "I thought Aura might like to see what the dojo looked like when it wasn't filled with pumpkins and strobe lights."

Emily laughed, abandoning her weight machine and snatching her towel up off the bench as she wandered over to join them. "Yeah, I heard a lot of stories about that party. Marie took an awful lot of pictures... did you ever get to see them?"

"No," Carlos said, interested in spite of himself. "We talked about taking some, but we never got a chance."

"Well, I'll have to get you some copies." Emily turned her smile on Aura then, greeting her with a slow but passable imitation of the Aquitians' salutatory hand gesture. "I'm Emily, by the way. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Aura's hand slid out of his, and she returned the gesture gravely. "I'm Aura," she replied, offering her hand. "I am pleased to meet you as well."

Emily shook her hand without hesitation. "So are you guys on a tour of the city? You picked a beautiful day for it, if you are."

Before Carlos could answer, he heard a familiar voice call, "Hey, it's Carlos and Aura! Paying a visit to the old folks' home, huh?"

Rocky bounded across the floor, waving energetically in their direction. While Emily wore soft-soled karate shoes, Rocky was barefoot even in his street clothes. He came to a surprisingly graceful halt in front of them, shooting Emily a mock-reproving frown. "You could have told me we had company."

"I didn't want to drag you away from the all-important paperwork," she responded promptly.

Rocky rolled his eyes. "She just wants me to finish it all so she won't have to put in time this evening," he confided in a loud whisper.

Emily punched him lightly in the shoulder, and he caught her hand. Making a show of inspecting it, he announced, "No sparring for you until you cut those nails, young lady!"

She just laughed. "Yellow belts don't spar, Rocky."

"Well, you want to be ready, don't you?" He didn't wait for her answer, instead turning to them and asking, "So how are things in the rest of the world?"

"Things are--" Carlos caught Aura's eye and smiled. "Good. Getting better every day, in fact."

"Hey," Rocky said suspiciously, looking at them and then up at the clock over the door. "Shouldn't you be at school? Or is this senior skip day and no one told me?"

"No, that was last week," Carlos said with a grin. "But we... well, I owed Aura in a big way. So here we are."

Rocky gave him an odd look. "You owed her a visit to the dojo?"

"I owed her a visit to everywhere," Carlos corrected. He could feel Aura's eyes on him, but he kept his gaze on Rocky. "We--talked about it, and it didn't seem fair that I can roam around her planet when she can't even show her face here."

Rocky seemed to take that in stride. "Well, you're always welcome here, Aura," he said giving her one of his more serious smiles. Then he added cockily, "Quest Karate doesn't discriminate on the basis of planet of origin."

Carlos couldn't help grinning, and he saw Aura nod out of the corner of his eye. "Thank you for your hospitality," she said quietly.

Rocky repeated the gesture Emily had used, although he did it with an ease that Emily's had only hinted at. Aura copied it, and Carlos suggested, "We should probably head out, before I make you guys look bad..."

Rocky glanced at the clock again, but he shook his head. "The two of you will never make the dojo look bad," he told them. He was uncharacteristically serious once more. "We tell the younger kids that school is their first priority, but that's because the only way to teach what's *really* important is by example. Respect and tolerance are what we're all about, and you personify that."

Carlos shifted uncomfortably, but he saw Aura smile a little. "Thanks," he said at last, more occupied with her expression than Rocky's words.

"But if you are going to leave," Emily added, "could you do it before the Little Dragons come in? Jason's nephew is in that class."

Her face was so deadpan that Carlos didn't even realize she was kidding until she grinned at him. "We're going," he said, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. "Good to see you again, guys."

"Don't be a stranger," Rocky reminded them. "We have to get all the news from Gabe and TJ lately!"

Or Tommy, Carlos thought, not missing the look Rocky gave Aura. He knew perfectly well that Billy and Tommy were still in touch, and he suspected that Rocky hadn't been entirely surprised to see him walk in with Aura this afternoon. Still, he was grateful for their support, and he hoped Aura's silence didn't mean anything.

"We'll be back again sometime," he promised, and Emily lifted her hand to wave.

"Nice to meet you, Aura," she said warmly. "Keep Carlos out of trouble, all right?"

"I will do my best," Aura answered, sounding far too solemn.

Carlos paused, the door open, to stare at her in surprise. "You'll keep *me* out of trouble? I think you've got that backwards! I'm not the adrenaline junkie, here!"

She positively smirked at him as she preceded him out into the parking lot, and he realized too late that her solemnity had been an act. "I'm not the one showing me around my planetbound hometown, either," she told him.

It took him a moment to come up with an answer for that, but as he opened the driver's side door he stepped up on the frame to regard her over the top of the car. "Are you saying you want to stop?" he inquired, only half-joking.

She considered him, then glanced down as though trying to figure out what he was doing. Finally she put one foot on the doorframe and clumsily climbed up to stare back at him. "No," she said simply, resting her chin on her arms as she gazed at him.

"Good." He reached toward her with one hand, and she reciprocated. He pressed his palm to hers, feeling a calm comfort seep into him when she smiled. "Let's go get some smoothies, and you can meet Adelle."

***

"What does it mean, 'on the house'?" Aura asked, poking her fruit smoothie idly with her straw.

They stood in the sunwarmed parking lot of the Surf Spot, drawing surprisingly little attention. It wasn't crowded, possibly because the establishment had only just opened for the afternoon, but the people who were passing didn't stare any harder than they might have stared at Rangers on her own planet.

She saw Carlos glance over at her out of the corner of her eye. "It means something's free," he said, leaning against the front of his vehicle. "It's used in... well, it's used mostly by people who work in restaurants, or bars, or... I don't know, athletic centers. Whenever someone's providing a service that you'd normally have to pay for, and they decide not to charge you, they say it's on the house."

She shook her head. "It still surprises me that you are expected to pay," she mused. "None of these places would exist if it weren't for you."

"They're not supposed to know that," he reminded her, lowering his voice despite the fact there was no one near enough to overhear.

She paused, regarding him carefully. "So you did not expect Adelle to understand what you meant when you told her how we met?"

He shrugged. "There were quantrons, you fought them; that was the truth."

"To tell the truth with the intent to mislead is no different than a lie," she said, frowning.

"All right," he agreed easily. "I lied. But Adelle can't know who I am, Aura. Once one of the Power Rangers' identities is out, it's not going to take anyone long to figure out the rest of them. I can't compromise my teammates, even for you."

"I would never ask that of you," she said quickly. "I suppose I am only... unused to the secrecy."

He smiled. "I'm still not used to the way they treat us on your planet, either. It's weird to just--do things. No paying, no waiting... you just do it. It's cool. Even if there isn't much privacy."

It was not lost on her that they each regarded the other sympathetically. She smiled to herself, taking another sip of her raspberry smoothie. "What does yours taste like?" she asked suddenly, glancing over at him again.

He chuckled. "Try it," he invited, handing her the plastic tumbler. "We'd better go, though," he added. "I need to let the guys know what's going on."

She swallowed, deciding that strawberry-kiwi didn't have anything on raspberry. "The guys?" she repeated, handing his smoothie back.

"I was supposed to be at soccer practice right after school gets out," he explained, giving her an inquiring look for the smoothie. She shook her head and he just grinned. "So I figured I'd at least stop by and tell them why I'm ditching them."

"Carlos," she said hesitantly. He was already pulling his door open, so she followed suit. As she climbed inside, though, she continued, "You don't have to... I mean--you don't have anything to prove..."

"I know," he answered, fastening his seatbelt and starting the car again. He flashed her a reassuring smile. "I'm doing this because I want to, Aura. Not because I'm trying to prove something."

She relaxed a little. She had to think this was a bigger deal than he was making it seem, but she didn't know that much about Angel Grove. Maybe this was her chance to learn...

He pointed out his school as they drove by, and she listened to him talk about it with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. It didn't sound anything like the education she had received, and she told him so.

"You'll have to tell me about it sometime," he said, with a grin she didn't understand.

Before she could ask, they were coming to a stop outside the park. Carlos was waving to one of his friends before he even got out of the car, and she couldn't help but feel a flutter of nervousness. These weren't former Rangers or idle acquaintances; these were people Carlos saw every day and whose opinion he valued--and they had no reason to see her as anything but "alien".

"They won't bite," Carlos murmured, leaning back through the open window to whisper to her. "I promise." He looked strangely confident, and though she tried not to, she couldn't help poking his thoughts ever so lightly.

He had told them!

She was torn between glaring at him and laughing as she pushed her door open and clambered out. He must have been planning this for longer than she had known. It was almost embarrassing... how long had he been finding ways to make up for something that wasn't even his fault?

His friends did a credible job of appearing surprised, and she could tell that some part of their startled reactions was completely sincere. Though her people had defended Earth before, she doubted any of them had ever actually spoken with someone from another planet. But not a single one of them was anything but polite, and the one who introduced himself as "David" even went so far as to invite her to their next game.

She just laughed at that, especially when Carlos accused his friend of flirting with her. She couldn't resist teasing him then, pointing out that *he* had never invited her to a game. Carlos looked appropriately chagrinned, and the expression drew chuckles from the others.

Finally someone spotted their coach, and Carlos' friends shooed them away with an urgency she didn't quite understand. She was just as glad to grab Carlos' hand as they hurried back toward the car, and his sudden kiss as he held her door for her was more than welcome. But she didn't forget to demand a breathless explanation as they drove off.

"I wasn't in school," he said, as though she might have forgotten. "I'm not allowed at practice if I don't go to school. Or games, for that matter, but the season's over now and the only thing I'll be missing this afternoon is the scrimmage."

She was silent for a moment, glancing sideways at him as he watched the road disappear in front of them. "I'm sorry," she said at last. She knew how much soccer meant to him.

"I'm not," he answered, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "This is much more fun. Bet my phone rings off the hook this evening, though," he added as an afterthought.

"Carlos," she said quietly.

He shot a quick look in her direction before turning his attention back to the road. "Yeah?"

She smiled, watching the trees flash past through her open window. "I love you."

She felt him fumble for her hand, and she laced her fingers through his without another word. "I love you, too," he murmured. The words were heartfelt, and she squeezed his hand contentedly as they flew on down the road together.