Ashley smiled. That was a new one. She scanned the rest of the door, looking for things that had been added since her last visit. The holographic "normal people worry me" sticker right underneath the room number had been the first thing to go up, and more pictures and quotes seemed to appear on a weekly basis.

The "No Fear" bumper sticker caught her eye, as usual, and right underneath it she saw another new remark: "I can only please one person a day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow does not look promising either."

Rolling her eyes, she lifted her hand to knock. The door swung open before she could touch it, however, and she blinked as Jeff suddenly loomed over her. He had an overfull recycling bin in one hand and the doorknob in the other, and was clearly brought up short at the sight of her standing in the hallway.

"Hi," he said, a startled look on his face. He twisted to glance over his shoulder, making a token attempt at checking the time. "Are you early, or am I that late?"

"I'm early," she assured him, reaching out to take the recycling bin from him. "Let me help with this."

"Uh... yeah, all right." He grabbed the trash and flashed her a rueful smile. "I'm a little disorganized right now; sorry. So what's up?"

"Not much," she said casually, catching the door for him. They headed down the hall toward the dorm's rear entrance, and she added, "Actually, that's not true. I kind of wanted to talk to you before dinner, if you're not too busy."

"Never too busy for you, girl." Jeff grinned at her as he held the door. "As long as you don't mind talking over my packing."

"No, that's fine." She watched him toss the trash into the dumpster, and held the recycling bin while he sorted out the bottles and cans.

"The rest of it goes in there," he said, pointing to the paper recycling a moment later. She dumped the bin's leftovers, and he gave her an inquiring look as they made their way back inside. "So what did you want to talk about? Anything in particular?"

"Kind of." He held the door for her again on the way in, but she noticed he didn't offer to carry the recycling bin. "It's about next year."

"Having second thoughts about UCLA?" he asked, following her up the stairs.

"Not exactly. Well... yeah, sort of."

"Going away?" he hazarded. "Or just college in general?"

"College in general, I guess." She paused in his doorway to set the recycling bin down, and in the process got her first good look at his room. Or what had been his room. "What did you *do*? Open the windows and invite a tornado?"

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" he said wryly. "What can I say; I'm an obsessive packer."

"You're an obsessive something," she agreed with a smirk. "What is all this stuff?"

"This stuff is life," he informed her. "And it's been here all along, so don't give me that shocked look."

"Why do you have shot glasses?" she asked suspiciously, inspecting the dishes piled on his desk. They were half buried under clothes, sheet music, and a battered copy of "The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook", but she couldn't help noticing them. Jeff had always claimed he didn't drink.

"Why do you know what a shot glass looks like?" he demanded, shifting one of his plastic milk crates out of the way.

She rolled her eyes. "Everyone knows what a shot glass looks like, Jeff. Where'd you get them?"

"Credit card company," he answered, stacking another milk crate on top of the first. "Why, do you want one?"

"A credit card company gave you shot glasses?"

"Sure." He pushed his duffel bag out of the way and came over to collect the sheet music. "They're always giving out free stuff if you fill out their applications. I got a t-shirt from Discover that says 'life is short; make fun of it'. It's great."

"So how many credit cards do you have?" Ashley wanted to know, watching him stuff the music into a folder.

"You put down the wrong social and your application gets thrown out." He picked up one of the shot glasses and tossed it to her. "Here. Put candy in it or something; it makes a great paperweight. Plus people ask you why you have a shot glass sitting on your desk," he added with a grin.

She turned it over in her hands, wondering if they had shot glasses on KO-35. Or paperweights. Or desks, for that matter.

*Don't be silly,* she scolded herself. *There are desks on the Megaship.*

"So what's going on?" Jeff seemed oblivious to her musings as he shoved a couple of notebooks into his backpack. "What are you thinking about college?"

She shifted uncomfortably, glancing at his desk chair. It was laden with sweatshirts, a jean jacket, computer printer, and what looked like Jeff's entire poster collection. She chose to sit on the bed instead, pushing aside a beanbag full of CDs and inline skates to make room. "I'm thinking I hope I don't have this much stuff," she said, settling herself carefully on the mattress.

"I hope you don't have half again this much stuff," Jeff retorted good-naturedly. "What with your immense collection of clothes... you'll have to get an extra room just to store them all in."

She wrinkled her nose at him, but he wasn't paying attention. He was staring at his closet instead, a can of WD-40 in his hand as he contemplated a rather large stack of comic books and magazines. She just shook her head, deciding not to comment.

"I thought I wanted to go to college," she said, picking up a glow-in-the-dark slinky. "I mean, everyone's always expected me to go... what's the point of this? You don't have stairs."

Jeff looked over at his shoulder at her change in tone, and saw her holding up the slinky inquiringly. He grinned, putting down a plastic file holder. "Watch this," he said, taking the slinky from her. "This is cool."

Setting it on the shelf above his desk, he pulled out the keyboard drawer and flipped it down. "Ready?"

When she nodded, he gave the slinky a careful push. It obediently swung off the shelf, landing on top of the computer monitor and flipping end over end to put its other foot down on the desk proper. From there it made the short hop to the open drawer, and Jeff scrambled to get his hand underneath it. It obediently touched down on his fingers before continuing the rest of the way to the floor.

"Normally it would go onto the chair," he offered, picking it up again and handing it back. "Looks really cool in the dark."

She looked from him to the slinky and back again. "You have way too much free time."

He shrugged. "Consider it part of the creative process. How can you not want to go to college when you get to do cool things like that?" he added, grinning.

"What's wrong with me," she agreed dryly. "Think of the opportunities I'd be missing!"

"Is it the idea of college itself?" he asked, more seriously. "Or is there just something you'd rather be doing?"

She let the slinky slide from one hand to another, not looking at him. "Well, that's the thing... Andros--Andros sort of asked me to come with him," she finished quickly.

Jeff paused, and she glanced up to see him frowning at his closet. "Ah," he said at last. "Well, that's... interesting."

She studied him, trying to gauge his reaction. "What, that he asked me?"

"Well, that and the fact that I just figured out where my maglite went." There was the sound of something tearing, and Jeff pulled the little flashlight out of his closet. "Check it out!"

Ashley sighed, and he turned the flashlight off. "Just kidding," he promised with a grin, tossing the flashlight into his duffel bag. "Tell me about Andros. He wants you to come with him to KO-35?"

"No--yes," she amended. "I mean, he's not pressuring me to come or anything, he just said it would be nice if I did. Like--he wants me to come, but only if I want to."

Jeff regarded her for a moment. "Do you want to?"

She stared back, wondering what he was thinking. "I'm not sure."

He didn't answer right away. Finally, he asked, "Is he going to stay here, if you don't go?"

She twined her fingers together and squeezed nervously. "I don't know," she admitted. "I don't..." She swallowed. "I don't think so."

"So..." He seemed to be considering his words. "If you don't go with him--you'll break up?"

"No. I mean--we wouldn't, not on purpose, but..." She sighed, the ultimate outcome finally crystallizing in her mind. "I think it would happen eventually."

"Some people can hold together long-distance relationships," Jeff pointed out. "It happens, when people go away to college. Some of them stay together until they can be with each other again."

"But that's the thing," she said slowly. She had never thought about it quite that way--not so long term, just what would happen in the next few months. "Even if we stay together until I graduate, then what? Andros isn't going to live on Earth... I guess I always sort of knew that. So if I go to college, I'll just have to decide all over again when I graduate."

There was silence for a moment, then Jeff said, "Tell me if this is none of my business, okay?"

She nodded, surprised that he would even ask. Neither of them had ever been reluctant to tell the other to butt out. She smiled a little just thinking about it.

"How serious are you guys?" Jeff asked bluntly. "When Andros asks you to go with him, what exactly does he mean? Is this like, 'let's go be Rangers somewhere else for a while' or is it more like, 'will you marry me and start a family on my home planet'?"

She looked down at her hands, then reached for the slinky again. "I think it's more like the 'marry me' option," she said softly, surprised at how hard it was to say out loud. It was like saying the words might make the possibility less real.

"If you knew," Jeff said, "would that make a difference? Would you be more likely to go if you knew that's what he was asking? Are you thinking about going at all?" he added as an afterthought. "I just assumed you were..."

"Yeah, I'm thinking about it," she said with a small smile. "I'm thinking about it more now, actually."

There wasn't much he could say to that, and she watched as he picked up one of his posters and started rolling it up. Her smile widened as she realized what it was a picture of. Her brother had found one of the new Power Ranger posters last fall, and it had hung in his room ever since.

"What do you think?" she asked abruptly, watching him slide a second poster inside the first roll. "About me going to KO-35, I mean?"

He stared at the posters for a moment, then muttered, "That was a really dumb way to do it." He slid the elastic off the outer poster and let both of them unroll. "I'm thinking," he added, giving her a sidelong glance.

He looked around for someplace flat to lay the posters, found none, and made do with the accumulated milk crates and the edge of his cluttered bureau. He added the other large poster to the two he was already working on, and this time he rolled them all up at once. Stretching the elastic band around the roll, he balanced it against the end of his bed and turned back to look at her.

"I think that no one else can tell you what you want," he said finally. "I think you and Andros care for each other an awful lot, and I think you have to do what your heart tells you to."

She made a face. "That's such a cop-out," she complained, but she couldn't keep from smiling as she said it. It wasn't really; it was just his way of saying he wouldn't think she was crazy, whatever she decided.

He shrugged, but he was grinning too. "I know. If you really want to know, I'll tell you something, but it's not my decision to make. It isn't anyone's but yours, and don't let them tell you differently."

"Even Mom and Dad?" The words slipped out before she could think, and if they sounded as worried as she thought they did...

They did. The sympathetic look he gave her said it all. "It's your decision," he repeated. "Not theirs. You've already moved out once; they can handle it again."

She sighed. "Moving to another planet isn't quite the same thing. So what were you going to say?"

"Oh..." He hesitated. "Well, it's just this. I think if you can even think about giving up everything to be with someone else, then that someone else must be the most important thing in your life. And maybe, if you don't do it, nothing you'll ever achieve can make up for not having that one most important thing."

She just looked at him. "I can't decide whether that's depressing or inspiring," she said at last.

He grinned. "Maybe it's not even the truth. But you asked."

"Yeah, I did," she admitted, glancing at the clock. "Thanks."

"For whatever it's worth, you're welcome." He followed her gaze. "We'd better get moving, huh?"

"Yeah... did you accomplish anything here?" she asked, looking around his room.

He shrugged. "We'll see, I guess."

***

"Pass the potatoes, please?"

Ashley picked them up and handed them across the middle of the table, and Jeff winked at her. "Thanks."

She took a deep breath, deciding that it wouldn't get any easier by waiting. "I have something I wanted to talk about, actually. It's going to sound a little crazy..."

"But we expect that of you," Jeff assured her, helping himself to the potatoes.

She made a face at him, but she was grateful for his unspoken support. "It's about--this summer."

Without looking up, Jeff cleared his throat pointedly, and she added, "Or maybe longer."

She had both her parents' undivided attention now, she could tell. They were both giving her that expectant-but-trying-to-be-neutral look that only overprotective parents can manage. She shifted uncomfortably, and figured she'd better just get it over with. "Andros asked me to go back to KO-35 with him."

"For the summer?" her father asked. He sounded perfectly calm, but it was in that "I haven't decided what to feel about this yet" kind of way.

She swallowed carefully, wishing she felt casual enough to take a sip of water. "More like... indefinitely."

There was silence for a moment, as she had known there would be. "It's kind of a Ranger thing," she added, into the pause. "KO-35 only has two, after all, and now that it's trying to get back on its feet there's all sorts of trade issues and alliances and even practical stuff like getting food and water..."

She took a breath before continuing. "Having another Ranger around that everyone already knows could really help, so he was hoping--" She hesitated for just a second, not sure how to phrase exactly what Andros had been hoping. "Maybe I could do that," she finished awkwardly.

She saw her parents exchange glances. "So is this a professional arrangement?" her mother asked, a little too casually. "Or a personal one?"

She looked over at Jeff, and he gave her a quick smile of encouragement. "It's kind of both," she admitted. "We really want to be together, Mom. But KO-35 needs him more than Earth does right now, and it sounds like they could use my help too."

"Well..." her mother said at last. "If this is something you want, we certainly can't make that kind of decision for you."

"I have to ask, though," her father added. "Do you have any idea what you're getting into? It sounds like you're talking about rebuilding a world from the ground up. You could commit your whole life to something like that and still never finish."

"Which is pretty much what she's doing now anyway," Jeff interjected. He kept his tone light, as though he was making a joke, but that was the truth of being a Ranger and they knew it. Or at least, she thought they were starting to know it.

"I don't really know what I'm getting into," she confessed. "But I didn't know when Tanya asked me to take her place, either, and I managed anyway. I think maybe I could make a real difference on KO-35."

"I know you could," her mom said gently. "What matters to us is whether you'd be happy there."

"I guess I won't know until I try it," Ashley offered, trying to sound more careless than she felt. "I don't know that it will make me happy, but I do know that I want to be with Andros. And I know I'd always wonder if I didn't go."

To tell the truth, she was surprised and more than a little relieved at her parents' reactions. She didn't know what she had expected--they hadn't absolutely forbidden anything in longer than she could remember, but their wordless disapproval had usually been enough to dissuade her. This time, though... they were treating her like an adult, and it was both refreshing and a little frightening. If this didn't work out, she would have no one to blame but herself.

"When would you leave?" her father asked slowly, interrupting her reflection.

"I... I don't really know." She looked down at her plate for the first time in several minutes. "I just told Andros I'd think about it. We haven't talked about it since, so we haven't really made any plans."

"Well, if you go and you love it," Jeff told her, "let us know by July, okay?"

She frowned at him curiously.

He just grinned. "That's when tuition bills start coming."

***

It wasn't as late as she'd expected by the time she made it back to the Megaship. Her parents had wanted tonight to be a "family night", partly to congratulate Jeff for finishing the semester and her for being so close to finishing, and partly just to spend time together. But after her announcement at dinner, no one objected when she begged off movie watching to go back to the Megaship for a while.

She smiled as the familiar grey walls appeared around her, and she wondered suddenly what it would be like to have this feel more like "home" than the planet she was living on. Would it be strange? Lonely? Or... did she already feel that way, and she just hadn't realized it?

"DECA?" she said, laying her hand against the wall.

"Yes, Ashley?"

She smiled again. There was someone else she had to tell first. "Nothing. Where's Andros?"

"Andros is on deck one," DECA replied promptly.

"Thanks," Ashley answered, making her way toward the lift. There was only one thing "deck one" could mean, but she paused just outside the observatory door when she arrived.

It was entirely possible Andros was with Zhane, and she barely remembered not to call out to him mentally before she went in. She hadn't realized how often she used that alternative method of communication until it was denied to her. Finally she just keyed the door open and stepped inside, hoping she wouldn't be interrupting.

Andros was lying on his back in the middle of the room, sprawled across two sleeping bags directly under the overheard portal. His eyes were closed, and he was alone--effectively. She couldn't help but smile at the puddle of grey fur stretched out on his chest. In that fleeting moment, she knew what Andros had known as soon as he saw them: those kittens would never go back to the vet clinic.

Then Andros turned his head toward her, eyes opening halfway as he regarded her lazily. "Hey," he greeted her, making no movement that would disturb the kitten sleeping on top of him. "Did you have a good time?"

"Yeah," she answered, smiling fondly down at him. "You look comfortable."

A smile spread across his face in return. "Not as comfortable as I'd be if you were with me."

She let out a breath in amusement, and settled herself on the floor next to him. She didn't lie down, though she knew that was what he had in mind. She wanted to be able to see his expression for this.

"So," she said, and she saw his eyes turn curious as he caught onto her hesitation. "Still want me to come with you?"

His face lit up. "Yeah," he said eagerly. "Still thinking about it?"

Her lips quirked. "Yeah. I... I wanted to ask you a few things, though."

"Sure." He sat up, dislodging the grey kitten as carefully as he could. The creature barely protested as it was moved to his lap, and Ashley couldn't resist reaching out to stroke its fur gently.

"Where's the other one?" she asked, glancing around.

"On the Bridge, I think." Andros smiled down at the kitten in his lap. "They've decided that's their new home. DECA's been keeping an eye on them, making sure they don't get in too much trouble."

She almost said something then, but she reminded herself that he wouldn't have any idea where she was coming from if she suggested keeping them right now. "I'm glad they're not lonely," she said instead, patting the grey kitten's head.

"They have each other," Andros reminded her. "They seem okay as long as they can be together most of the time."

She lifted her gaze to his and found him watching her. It wasn't an expectant look, just an idle stare, and she smiled. He smiled back, apparently realizing what he'd said. "Sort of like me with you," he added.

"And me with you," she murmured. "Andros... you don't want to live on Earth, do you."

He blinked. "I--I want to be with you," he said carefully, but she shook her head.

"It's okay," she said, searching his expression. "I understand... I just need you to be totally honest with me for a few minutes."

"I'm always honest with you," he told her. He didn't sound offended, though, and she knew he knew what she meant.

"I know," she said anyway. "But don't try not to hurt my feelings. Would you ever want to live on Earth?"

He hesitated just long enough to make her sure she had been right. "Permanently?" he asked at last. "I... No, I guess I wouldn't. To be honest, I don't know what I'd do here."

"So when you asked me to come to KO-35," she said, studying him. "Did you mean--permanently?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Well, first off," he said, resettling the grey kitten in his lap, "I didn't ask you to come unless you wanted to. And if you did come, I'd never ask you to stay longer than you wanted to, or--"

"Andros," she interrupted. "I'm not... it's not what you think; I'm not--mad at you. I want to come, but... I need to know if what I'm thinking is what you're thinking."

"What are you thinking?" he asked carefully.

Staring into his eyes, she couldn't quite bring herself to say it aloud. "I asked you first."

He didn't smile, and it was a long moment before he ventured, "I was thinking... permanently."

Her life went from utterly uncertain to absolutely perfect in less than a second. "Me too," she whispered, gazing back at him.

He swallowed visibly. "Does that mean--what I think it means?"

"Are you sure you want me to come live on KO-35 permanently?" she teased, a little breathless. "You know you'll never get me out of your hair."

"You'd come?" He looked torn between shock and delight. "Would you really come?"

"Of course I'd come!" As charming as his surprise was, she couldn't help giggling. "Do you think I'm just saying this? Do you know how much I've been thinking about it?"

"Not as much as I've been thinking about it, I bet," he said ruefully.

"Oh, yeah?" she demanded, grinning. "How much?"

"Every day," he admitted. "Ever since the first time I left."

"Yeah?" she repeated, leaning a little closer. Lowering her voice, she teased, "I've been thinking about it every minute."

He lifted one hand to her face, touching her chin gently. "Every second," he whispered, his soft kiss more welcome at that moment than anything else in the universe.

"We'll call it a draw," she murmured, kissing him again.

"No, we won't," he insisted, resting his forehead against hers as he played with the ends of her hair. "Because I won. You just won't admit it."

"You didn't win," she countered. "Because I'm still thinking about it."

"So am I," he whispered, not moving.

"What are you thinking?" she asked softly. She smiled inadvertently as he tickled her neck. "Share."

"You first," he breathed, giving her another kiss.

"Mmm..." She pulled away, brown eyes catching hazel. "I'm thinking how good that feels."

He cleared his throat, then an impish grin touched his expression. "So do I win?"

"No," she retorted, trying not to giggle. "Are we really going to live on KO-35? Or are we going to stay on the Megaship?"

"We can do more good on KO-35," he answered slowly. Though he seemed to be giving the question serious consideration, she saw his gaze start to wander.

"But you said you and Zhane have been working on Eltare," she said, deliberately rearranging her legs. It was just getting warm enough to wear shorts again, and she had taken full advantage of the weather. "Is there any place to stay on KO-35?"

"Sure," he said, lifting his gaze to hers again. "Zhane and I were in Keyota last week, and it's almost completely rebuilt. It's not like it was before, obviously, but what's there is perfectly livable."

"Livable?" she repeated. "What do you mean by 'livable'?"

"It's not like Earth," he warned her. "But it's nice, I promise. There's running water and good food, and the power's more dependable than it is on Eltare. Zhane and I have rooms at one of the youth hostels... they're not big, but they're nicer than the Megaship."

She made herself smile, trying not to let her uncertainty show. She had survived Cassie's camping trips, after all. And he was probably underestimating things, as usual... Probably.

"So you have rooms?" she said archly, hoping to cover her reaction. "Do I get my own, or will we just have to make do?"

There was a time when the suggestion would have made him blush, but now he just smiled. "You get your own. Nobody shares--especially not Rangers."

"Nobody?" She frowned, surprised. "Is that a hostel rule or something?"

"Sort of," he admitted. "It's just to keep people from getting crowded, though; it's not to keep them from... well, you know."

She was so preoccupied by that news that the thought of teasing him for that last remark was fleeting. "Everyone has their own room," she repeated thoughtfully. That in and of itself probably said more about how few people there were on KO-35 than anything else. "Do you--pay for your room?"

"No, of course not." He looked amused at the idea. "No one pays to stay at a hostel."

"What about meals?" she persisted. "They don't feed you too, do they?"

"The morning meal and the evening one," he offered. "Everything else is up to the resident. But Rangers don't pay for meals, either, so we don't have to worry about that.

"You'll like it, Ash," he repeated, more quietly. "If you give it a chance, I think you'll like KO-35."

"I know I will," she said quickly. "And you know why?"

He shook his head, not taking his eyes off of hers.

She smiled. "Because you'll be there, silly."

A smile spread across his face, and for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her. But then, to her surprise, he reached down and picked up the grey kitten. He held it up next to his cheek, and she laughed at his expression.

"Let me guess," she said, between giggles. "The kittens are coming with us."

He shrugged. "It's up to you," he said, in that tone of voice that told her it wasn't at all. "But they'd have more fun with us than anyone else."

"I'll have to convince Janet, somehow," she said, reaching over to pat the kitten as he set it down again. "She's not going to believe that I can just haul two kittens off to my dorm room with me."

"You could always tell her the truth," he suggested.

She eyed him, not totally sure he was joking until he smiled. She wrinkled her nose at him. "Very funny. 'Janet, my boyfriend and I are going to live on another planet and we'd like to take your kittens with us. You don't mind, do you?'"

"I'm sure she wouldn't," Andros offered. "It's not like it isn't a nice place."

"Not as good as their home planet," she retorted.

"Better than their home planet," he corrected.

"We'll just have to see about that," she said with a smirk.

"You will see," he informed her. "So will they."

She knew there had been a time when their good-natured banter over which planet was "better" had made him angry, but on nights like this she couldn't remember it very well. She smiled, running her fingers through the kitten's short fur again. "We'll have to ask them, sometime."

"Kerone could," Andros said idly, watching her pat the kitten.

She looked up in surprise. "You're kidding."

He shook his head. "She says she hears Jetson sometimes. I don't see why she couldn't talk to them."

"She can talk to Jetson?" Ashley stared at him. "Since when?"

He shrugged, catching her eye at last. "Since always, I guess. It surprised me, too."

"Wait..." She frowned as something occurred to her. "Is she the only one?"

Andros frowned back. "What do you mean?"

"Well... Saryn's awfully convinced that Jetson doesn't like him. I guess you saying that Kerone can 'hear' him made me wonder."

Andros' frown faded. "He's just jealous that Cassie likes her dog more than she likes him," he said, amused. "If there's more to it, he's never said anything to me."

She giggled. "You're probably right. He really doesn't get along with Jetson, does he."

Andros shook his head. "No... unfortunately, Cassie managed to adopt the only other being in the world as jealous as he is."

Ashley's giggles turned into full-fledged laughter. "They'll never get along with each other if that's true!"

He just shrugged, but he was smiling.

"Are you jealous?" Ashley whispered at last, getting herself under control as she leaned down to look the kitten in the eye. "Or should I be, because you're in my spot?"

Andros chuckled, setting the kitten down on the edge of the sleeping bag. "I think the only thing he'd say right now is that he's tired. He was racing around the Bridge with his brother all evening. DECA had to lock them in so they wouldn't fall down an access ladder before she could get to them."

"'Get to them'?" Ashley repeated, crawling into his embrace as he opened his arms to her. "What would she do?"

"Turn off the gravity," Andros answered. "She could catch them pretty well, but only if they were going slow enough that their inertia wouldn't slam them into the floor anyway."

"Oh," she murmured. "I didn't think of that. But she did that to TJ once, didn't she?"

"More than once," he said, a grin in his voice. "She turned off the AG field in his room three or four times, I think."

Ashley thought about that for a moment, and the fact that it took her that long made her suddenly aware of how tired she was. "Could she do that in here?" she asked at last.

"DECA," Andros said, raising his voice. "Could you shut off the AG field on deck one for a while?"

"Certainly," DECA's disembodied voice replied.

That was all the warning they had before "down" abruptly vanished. She tensed, clutching at Andros as she found herself falling--but nothing moved. It took her a moment to realize that everything was exactly as it had been before... except the direction.

There wasn't any. It was the strangest feeling, and she thought that if she hadn't grown almost used to it on her Galaxy Glider, it would be incredibly disconcerting. She tried to relax, only then noticing that her jump when the gravity first cut out had been enough to suspend them several inches above the floor. Unimpeded by a counter-force they were continuing, almost imperceptibly, to drift.

"Wow," she breathed, twisting to look up at Andros. Or was she looking down at him? It was impossible to tell... "This is crazy!"

"I like it," Andros said mildly. "You look pretty in zero-g."

She found herself blushing, and she reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear out of habit. It didn't work, of course; the loose strands just floated off again. But when she glanced down, she realized that their smallest motions--well, hers; Andros wasn't moving at all--were affecting their orientation. She didn't know until she looked that they were a little bit... sideways, with respect to the floor.

"Whoa," she murmured. "It's like--flying."

She had meant piloting a zord, or her Glider, where "up" changed depending on which direction you were facing. But Andros took her more literally, disentangling himself and pushing her arms out to the side before giving her a gentle push. "It's better than flying," he said, as they headed in opposite directions.

As she looked over her shoulder, she saw him move slightly, touching the floor with his foot just hard enough to stop his backward motion and start him going the other way. He overtook her slowly, but with a deliberate grace that made it obvious this environment wasn't as foreign to him as it was to her.

He reached out and caught her arm, skewing both their trajectories even as he pulled her closer. "You can't do this when you're flying," he murmured. His mouth covered hers, and she grasped his shirt awkwardly to keep from drifting away.

He put one arm around her, reaching out to tap the wall with the other when they got too close. "Just relax," he whispered in her ear. "I won't let us hit anything."

She tried, but it was hard when there was nowhere to relax *to*. Then he put his other arm around her, pulling her closer than a hug, and she sighed contentedly. She could do this kind of relaxing.

He returned her kiss gently, and she could feel her heart starting to pound as she did her best to deepen the exchange. Once he had been shy because he was shy, but now that he knew it drove her crazy she was sure he did it on purpose... The effect was only compounded by their mutual weightlessness, for they couldn't press against each other without being pushed in the other direction.

As they wrapped themselves around each other, twisting lazily in midair, something occurred to her. With no small amount of amusement, she realized that they were finally doing, in the observatory, just what their friends had suspected them of doing all along.

It was good to live up to expectations.