Five loves for Z Delgado
Okay, these fics were written for the 5trueloves comm but considering the mods don't seem to be responding to anything on the comm these days, and considering these fics have been sitting on my harddrive for six weeks waiting for a confirmation that so far hasn't turned up, I'm tired of waiting and posting them anyway.
“God I need a shower,” Syd moaned as they entered their quarters. “I am totally filthy.”
“You and me both,” Z groused. While she might have been used to irregular bathing opportunities in the past, that was no longer the case. Having her own shower, albeit a shared one, had definitely spoiled her. And if Syd thought she was getting the shower first and using up all the hot water she could just think again.
“You know what?” Syd said thoughtfully and she raised her eyebrows at her roommate in query. “Instead of fighting over who uses the shower first, we could totally share.”
Z stared as Syd looked back at her, fidgeting uncomfortably. Then she thought about it. “I’ll wash your back if you’ll do mine,” she offered and the pink ranger grinned.
“Deal.”
It felt like destiny, Z thought as she rested her head against Jack’s, his arm lying bonelessly across her stomach. That somehow everything they’d done together, from initial mistrust, to siblings, to now, everything had led to this. It had only been a matter of time before they realised they were so much more to each other than they’d realised.
Jack had been a part of her life for so long, the most important part of her life, and she could no more imagine her life without him than she could imagine living without her senses. He was an indelible part of her and she felt lost without him to anchor her. Even when he’d humoured her in her search for something or somewhere to belong, she’d always had the assumption that he’d be there. And he had been. Right up until the moment he’d left.
It had taken her a while to realise what it was about her life that felt so off after Jack resigned from SPD, but eventually she had come to realise that she missed having him around. While she had no intention of leaving SPD just yet, not when she’d found her purpose and family there, people that she wouldn’t give up for anything, she also wasn’t willing to give up Jack either. It was a good thing that the two weren’t mutually exclusive.
Gone. Gruumm was really gone. For a moment she hadn’t been entirely sure it was real. Her life over the past year had revolved around the war against Gruumm and it had all come down to this. Her ears still rang with the clang of metal on metal, Shadow Sabre against Gruumm’s staff, throwing off sparks every time the two weapons clashed. They’d moved so fast, a blur of movement that made the battle hard to see, to judge how it was going, who was winning. When the Shadow Sabre had flashed down that last time, she wasn’t sure what they were going to see when the dust cleared and she’d been scarily relieved when all Cruger had done was shatter Gruumm’s remaining horn. The confinement had left her stunned for a moment before realisation had sunk in and she’d cheered along with the rest of them, jumping into Sky’s waiting arms.
But with Gruumm gone it left her at something of loose ends. What would they do now that they no longer had a war to fight? Jack had his own ideas, of course and they didn’t involve SPD. Strangely, that didn’t hurt as much as she’d expected. Yes, Jack was her brother, but they didn’t need to be together all the time to be brother and sister. She didn’t envy Jack facing Syd’s wrath though and she really hoped this ‘Ally’ hadn’t had anything to do with Jack’s abrupt departure. If she did, she and Jack were having words. Jack might be her brother, but Syd was her best friend and if anyone was going to slap Jack round the face with his idiocy it was going to be her. Providing Sky didn’t get there first anyway.
Staring out the window in the rec. room, caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t hear Sky come up behind her until his hand came to rest on her shoulder. “What’s the matter?” he asked quietly and she shrugged, not complaining as his arms slid around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder where his hand had been a moment before.
“Nothing really. Just wondering where we go from here.”
It was interesting, Z thought in amusement, how many different shades of pink a face could go. At the moment the woman from the family planning centre had a face that was pinker than Syd’s uniform, something Z had doubted was possible, and was speedily moving on to more closely resemble Jack’s shirt. Someone, who in particular she didn’t know, probably someone who didn’t know B Squad that well, had decided that as young adults in a stressful situation they were likely to turn to ‘extra-curricula activities’ in dealing with said stressful situation and as such they needed to be aware of the dangers inherent in such ‘relations’, like unplanned pregnancies and STDs. As if they didn’t already know that.
She felt bad for the woman, she really did. Not enough to protest the blatant baiting though; it was far too entertaining. Between Jack’s apparent disregard for what she was saying, Sky’s outrage at the implication that he was less than responsible and Syd’s complaint that it wasn’t as if she had time for ‘relations’ in the first place, the woman was having a hard enough time. To have Bridge’s endless stream of questions on top of that, well… Dr. Maxwell didn’t really stand a chance. Z adored her boyfriend, she really did.
When Dr. Maxwell focused on her as a potential lifeline, Z found that no, she wasn’t so sympathetic as to not participate in the group hazing, blandly answering that yes she had sex, yes she was safe and yes she enjoyed seeing Dr. Felix’s reaction every single time she turned up to the infirmary. Bridge had gone last time, on the pretext that she was going to push the doctor into a nervous breakdown. She personally thought he was exaggerating.
Still, it seemed that Bridge almost hadn’t noticed the blatant attempt at redirection, continuing to barrage the woman with questions. The rest of her squad watched in amusement, Jack leaning forward to whisper something in Sky’s ear that resulted in the blue ranger simultaneously grinning and blushing, the tips of his ears going a dull red as he bit his bottom lip.
When the hour’s session finally came to an end, Dr. Maxwell looked relieved, while Bridge seemed a little disappointed. Z paused as they made their exits, linking her arm through Bridge’s as he mournfully got up from his chair and wondered if she was really as evil as she felt at the moment. She decided she was.
“I wouldn’t worry Bridge,” she said airily. “The family planning centre’s not that far from here. I’m sure Dr. Maxwell wouldn’t mind carrying on your conversation there.”
“You think?”
She patted his arm with her free hand. “Absolutely.”
By all rights, this thing shouldn’t work. They all had their neuroses, quirks that drove each other mad, but somehow, somehow it did work. They’d never been conventional anyway, this was hardly any different in that respect, but still… this was pushing it a bit.
There were times when Z was certain that one of these days, Sky’s attitude was going to get him his ass handed to him. He could be such a jerk without even thinking about it and sometimes she wondered if he even heard the words coming out of his mouth. But other times he turned that perception completely on its head, saying or doing something that could only be described as sweet, no matter how much they both hated the term.
Bridge… Bridge occasionally seemed as if he wasn’t entirely there, caught up in something only he could see, or a puzzle that he was trying to figure out. It wasn’t unusual to walk into the boys’ room and find him standing on his head as he tried to work out the latest conundrum. It wasn’t that big a deal really, because by now she knew what Bridge was like even if she couldn’t even begin to understand how he thought, but sometimes it was annoying to find he’d had gone off on a tangent when they were kinda in the middle of something here. When that happened she and Sky would exchange similarly resigned looks and either continue where they’d left off until Bridge got back with the programme, or devoted their attention to making damn sure he did get back with the programme before one of them exploded with frustration.
For her part, Z was certain that there were things about her that drove Bridge and Sky equally nuts, although don’t ask her what they were because she had really no idea. She supposed that if she was that curious Sky could tell her, in excruciating detail, all of her faults, but then again she wasn’t that curious. And if they bothered Sky all that much he would have said something by now. Not one to keep his opinions to himself was her Sky. Bridge was a little more discreet though and if she wanted his opinion on someone you usually had to pry it out of him.
“Z?” came the slightly muffled voice and she turned her head slightly.
“Mm?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this to you and not Bridge, but stop thinking.”
“She can’t stop thinking, Sky,” Bridge said sleepily. “If she did she’d stop breathing.”
“I don’t mean that kind of thinking,” was the exasperated response. “I just meant--” There was a sigh in the quiet darkness of the room. “Never mind.”
Z grinned and dropped a quick kiss on Sky’s shoulder in a kind of act of contrition. “I know what you meant.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sky grumbled, nonetheless turning over so he was leaning more into her. “Whatever.”
Resting her head in the crook of his shoulder, her arm lying across his chest much as Bridge’s was wrapped around her waist, Z smiled to herself. By all rights this shouldn’t work. But it did.
“God I need a shower,” Syd moaned as they entered their quarters. “I am totally filthy.”
“You and me both,” Z groused. While she might have been used to irregular bathing opportunities in the past, that was no longer the case. Having her own shower, albeit a shared one, had definitely spoiled her. And if Syd thought she was getting the shower first and using up all the hot water she could just think again.
“You know what?” Syd said thoughtfully and she raised her eyebrows at her roommate in query. “Instead of fighting over who uses the shower first, we could totally share.”
Z stared as Syd looked back at her, fidgeting uncomfortably. Then she thought about it. “I’ll wash your back if you’ll do mine,” she offered and the pink ranger grinned.
“Deal.”
It felt like destiny, Z thought as she rested her head against Jack’s, his arm lying bonelessly across her stomach. That somehow everything they’d done together, from initial mistrust, to siblings, to now, everything had led to this. It had only been a matter of time before they realised they were so much more to each other than they’d realised.
Jack had been a part of her life for so long, the most important part of her life, and she could no more imagine her life without him than she could imagine living without her senses. He was an indelible part of her and she felt lost without him to anchor her. Even when he’d humoured her in her search for something or somewhere to belong, she’d always had the assumption that he’d be there. And he had been. Right up until the moment he’d left.
It had taken her a while to realise what it was about her life that felt so off after Jack resigned from SPD, but eventually she had come to realise that she missed having him around. While she had no intention of leaving SPD just yet, not when she’d found her purpose and family there, people that she wouldn’t give up for anything, she also wasn’t willing to give up Jack either. It was a good thing that the two weren’t mutually exclusive.
Gone. Gruumm was really gone. For a moment she hadn’t been entirely sure it was real. Her life over the past year had revolved around the war against Gruumm and it had all come down to this. Her ears still rang with the clang of metal on metal, Shadow Sabre against Gruumm’s staff, throwing off sparks every time the two weapons clashed. They’d moved so fast, a blur of movement that made the battle hard to see, to judge how it was going, who was winning. When the Shadow Sabre had flashed down that last time, she wasn’t sure what they were going to see when the dust cleared and she’d been scarily relieved when all Cruger had done was shatter Gruumm’s remaining horn. The confinement had left her stunned for a moment before realisation had sunk in and she’d cheered along with the rest of them, jumping into Sky’s waiting arms.
But with Gruumm gone it left her at something of loose ends. What would they do now that they no longer had a war to fight? Jack had his own ideas, of course and they didn’t involve SPD. Strangely, that didn’t hurt as much as she’d expected. Yes, Jack was her brother, but they didn’t need to be together all the time to be brother and sister. She didn’t envy Jack facing Syd’s wrath though and she really hoped this ‘Ally’ hadn’t had anything to do with Jack’s abrupt departure. If she did, she and Jack were having words. Jack might be her brother, but Syd was her best friend and if anyone was going to slap Jack round the face with his idiocy it was going to be her. Providing Sky didn’t get there first anyway.
Staring out the window in the rec. room, caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t hear Sky come up behind her until his hand came to rest on her shoulder. “What’s the matter?” he asked quietly and she shrugged, not complaining as his arms slid around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder where his hand had been a moment before.
“Nothing really. Just wondering where we go from here.”
It was interesting, Z thought in amusement, how many different shades of pink a face could go. At the moment the woman from the family planning centre had a face that was pinker than Syd’s uniform, something Z had doubted was possible, and was speedily moving on to more closely resemble Jack’s shirt. Someone, who in particular she didn’t know, probably someone who didn’t know B Squad that well, had decided that as young adults in a stressful situation they were likely to turn to ‘extra-curricula activities’ in dealing with said stressful situation and as such they needed to be aware of the dangers inherent in such ‘relations’, like unplanned pregnancies and STDs. As if they didn’t already know that.
She felt bad for the woman, she really did. Not enough to protest the blatant baiting though; it was far too entertaining. Between Jack’s apparent disregard for what she was saying, Sky’s outrage at the implication that he was less than responsible and Syd’s complaint that it wasn’t as if she had time for ‘relations’ in the first place, the woman was having a hard enough time. To have Bridge’s endless stream of questions on top of that, well… Dr. Maxwell didn’t really stand a chance. Z adored her boyfriend, she really did.
When Dr. Maxwell focused on her as a potential lifeline, Z found that no, she wasn’t so sympathetic as to not participate in the group hazing, blandly answering that yes she had sex, yes she was safe and yes she enjoyed seeing Dr. Felix’s reaction every single time she turned up to the infirmary. Bridge had gone last time, on the pretext that she was going to push the doctor into a nervous breakdown. She personally thought he was exaggerating.
Still, it seemed that Bridge almost hadn’t noticed the blatant attempt at redirection, continuing to barrage the woman with questions. The rest of her squad watched in amusement, Jack leaning forward to whisper something in Sky’s ear that resulted in the blue ranger simultaneously grinning and blushing, the tips of his ears going a dull red as he bit his bottom lip.
When the hour’s session finally came to an end, Dr. Maxwell looked relieved, while Bridge seemed a little disappointed. Z paused as they made their exits, linking her arm through Bridge’s as he mournfully got up from his chair and wondered if she was really as evil as she felt at the moment. She decided she was.
“I wouldn’t worry Bridge,” she said airily. “The family planning centre’s not that far from here. I’m sure Dr. Maxwell wouldn’t mind carrying on your conversation there.”
“You think?”
She patted his arm with her free hand. “Absolutely.”
By all rights, this thing shouldn’t work. They all had their neuroses, quirks that drove each other mad, but somehow, somehow it did work. They’d never been conventional anyway, this was hardly any different in that respect, but still… this was pushing it a bit.
There were times when Z was certain that one of these days, Sky’s attitude was going to get him his ass handed to him. He could be such a jerk without even thinking about it and sometimes she wondered if he even heard the words coming out of his mouth. But other times he turned that perception completely on its head, saying or doing something that could only be described as sweet, no matter how much they both hated the term.
Bridge… Bridge occasionally seemed as if he wasn’t entirely there, caught up in something only he could see, or a puzzle that he was trying to figure out. It wasn’t unusual to walk into the boys’ room and find him standing on his head as he tried to work out the latest conundrum. It wasn’t that big a deal really, because by now she knew what Bridge was like even if she couldn’t even begin to understand how he thought, but sometimes it was annoying to find he’d had gone off on a tangent when they were kinda in the middle of something here. When that happened she and Sky would exchange similarly resigned looks and either continue where they’d left off until Bridge got back with the programme, or devoted their attention to making damn sure he did get back with the programme before one of them exploded with frustration.
For her part, Z was certain that there were things about her that drove Bridge and Sky equally nuts, although don’t ask her what they were because she had really no idea. She supposed that if she was that curious Sky could tell her, in excruciating detail, all of her faults, but then again she wasn’t that curious. And if they bothered Sky all that much he would have said something by now. Not one to keep his opinions to himself was her Sky. Bridge was a little more discreet though and if she wanted his opinion on someone you usually had to pry it out of him.
“Z?” came the slightly muffled voice and she turned her head slightly.
“Mm?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this to you and not Bridge, but stop thinking.”
“She can’t stop thinking, Sky,” Bridge said sleepily. “If she did she’d stop breathing.”
“I don’t mean that kind of thinking,” was the exasperated response. “I just meant--” There was a sigh in the quiet darkness of the room. “Never mind.”
Z grinned and dropped a quick kiss on Sky’s shoulder in a kind of act of contrition. “I know what you meant.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sky grumbled, nonetheless turning over so he was leaning more into her. “Whatever.”
Resting her head in the crook of his shoulder, her arm lying across his chest much as Bridge’s was wrapped around her waist, Z smiled to herself. By all rights this shouldn’t work. But it did.