Team Building with Jack Landors (SPD, A Squad, #5, T)
characters: SPD's A Squad (Rose/Charlie)
prompt #5: dead last
word count: 3100
rating: T (for language)
summary: Charlie, like every Red Ranger before her, has trouble with downtime. Rose understands.
author's note: Ruby appears with written permission of purplestripe66 and my love ♥
Team Building with Jack Landors (dead last)
by *Andrea
Back in the A Wing lounge for the first time since... she drew a blank, maybe because her mind refused to work after a day like this and maybe because she was half-asleep. She was leaning against Miguel, watching Charlie pace through half-lidded eyes while Des rediscovered the joys of a giant flat screen. It seemed, in some weird way, like they’d never even left. Like maybe they’d been here all along, and the last year had just been a bizarre dream.
Except that now, whenever one of them left their wing, a member of B Squad would mysteriously appear. Chatting, helping, or otherwise accompanying them without making it seem like they were under guard. Because they weren’t, Rose understood... but not everyone on base knew what to make of them, and the Rangers were trying to set the tone. Or possibly to protect them. She hadn’t ruled that option out.
“Hey, moto,” Des said, out of the blue. There was a long pause while the sound of cheering and motors revving filled the lounge, and then he remarked, “This is less cool than I remembered it.”
Charlie didn’t answer, but Miguel rumbled something about machines and food and then his translator picked up and she couldn’t focus on his own words anymore. “Frivolous mechanical things aren’t as impressive when you keep thinking how much food that level of technology could produce.”
“Uh-huh,” Des agreed, clearly not listening. Rose squeezed Miguel’s arm without lifting her head, letting him know that she’d heard. His fingers twitched in return, and she snuggled a little closer, glad at least one person was willing to cuddle tonight. Nights had been sticky in the jungle, but she missed the group huddles against bugs and predators and creeping loneliness and fear.
Jack’s team had joined them for dinner. Of course. Or rather, Jack and most of the other Rangers had closed ranks with them in the mess hall that evening, since it was sort of hard to tell who was on his team and who wasn’t, sometimes, and the younger cadets seemed understandably reluctant to socialize with people who had taken the base commander hostage. Jack, she thought, didn’t have that problem, and she wasn’t how much that had caused or been caused by his obvious conflict with Cruger.
“We could leave,” Charlie said suddenly. “Can you believe that? We could just walk out of here. Off the base, into the city... away from Earth, if we wanted to. We’re free to go.”
Don had. The whirlwind chaos that was the current A and B Squads had swept through A Wing and left it more than livable in their wake. They had apologized profusely for the dusty and vaguely creepy atmosphere of a place so long abandoned, but Rose found it oddly touching that their old rooms had been left, waiting for their return.
Or in memorial. That was admittedly creepier, and the sight of her nightgown stuffed under Charlie’s pillow had brought tears to her eyes. When Charlie had stepped on the “chick” magnet Rose had thrown at her the morning A Squad was roused for temporary deployment to the Helix Nebula, Rose had had to send her out of the room while she picked up after the ghosts of their past selves. It wouldn’t do any good to have them both break down.
By the time they finished, dinner was almost over and Don was still carrying the standard issue backpack they’d given him on his way out of rehab. Stone and Cecilya joined them for their first meal in the mess, but he had left with them once it was over. She didn’t blame him--Stone had climbed into the window himself to get that paper angel off the tree when Dr. Coon came in to tell them Cruger had authorized their release, and the boy hadn’t let go of it yet--but she missed him. It felt wrong to have one of them gone, like she’d set her arm down somewhere and forgotten to pick it up again.
“I’m too tired to go anywhere,” Miguel said, and a moment later the translator repeated his words. “I think you’re all very ambitious, but I’ll be staying here over night, thank you very much.”
The translator didn’t actually render it as “thank you very much,” but rather, “assuming it’s all the same to you,” Rose noted with a small smile. Jack had finally managed to get him a new one, five very long days after they were committed to rehab. They hadn’t had any room to complain, especially when, with Kat’s help, the model requisitioned for Miguel was no less than the latest version of his old, highly sophisticated translation device. Rose had been sure they wouldn’t see its like again for years--possibly ever, depending on the team’s fate.
“I’m sure leaving the base would end up involving New Tech PD in ways I don’t even want to imagine,” Charlie said, biting off words in that way she had when she was impatient with herself and really wanted to take it out on someone else. “It feels so wrong to just sit here.”
Rose tilted her head on Miguel’s shoulder just enough that she could get an unobstructed view of their team leader. Because really, she was warm and comfortable and sleepy, and Charlie was going to have to look pretty bad for Rose to give that up just to make her a little calmer. The only way they’d survived such close quarters for so long was by knowing when to step back and let each other work things out for themselves.
Charlie looked like she was about to crawl out of her skin. Or punch something. Repeatedly. Possibly both, and that wild-eyed look did not bode well for any kind of restful sleep in their room tonight. Rose could sleep out here, or with Miguel, or even with Des if it came to that. But then Charlie would still look like this come morning, only more exhausted and that much closer to snapping.
Rose sighed, pushing herself up off of Miguel with some effort. “I’ll go get changed,” she said. “Don’t go anywhere yet.”
It felt pretty amazing to get up from the couch and just walk out of the room into a hallway that led somewhere. They could leave; that was true. Hard to believe, but true. The temptation to wander was overwhelming the draw of the warm and comfortable lounge... but she had said she was going to change, and the second she went past the lift someone from B Squad would inevitably appear and pretend they had been going whichever way she happened to be headed.
So she ducked into the room she shared with Charlie instead. She tipped the picture she’d just set out that afternoon face down, because no, seeing the two of them playing cards in the lounge a year ago was still weird. She switched her old too-big civvies for new squad pants, pulled on a heavy sweatshirt over her pink SPD t-shirt, and grabbed an extra tee for Charlie because she liked that NASA tank and didn’t want to have to try to find her another one.
When she returned to the lounge, she found Charlie and Des fighting over a pair of VR goggles. Like there weren’t six of them in the room. “Children!” she said loudly, clapping her hands twice. “Attention, please!”
Even Miguel looked at her, although Charlie smirked with the briefest glance and elbowed Don in the side. “Told you.”
“Dykes,” he grumbled, shoving her back. “You’re so messed.”
Rose glanced at Miguel, who shrugged. “They bet on what you were changing into. Des thought you’d come back wearing less. Charlie guessed more.”
“What!” Des protested, when Rose frowned at him. “She’s bouncing off the walls! Guys fix that with sex! That’s all I’m saying!”
“We’re going now,” Rose said firmly. She threw the extra t-shirt at Charlie. “Mud swamp. Leave the NASA shirt here; I like it.”
This drew no resistance from Charlie, who shucked her spaghetti strap tank in the middle of the lounge and tossed it into a chair while she pulled the regulation tee on in its place. Des watched, and Rose didn’t bother smacking him for it. Waste of time, she’d learned. Charlie would continue to not care, and he would continue to stare, no matter what she did. So she just waited, smiling at Miguel when he gave her a thumbs-up.
“You guys want to come?” Charlie asked, heading for the door like she already knew the answer. Which she did. Who wanted to be in the mud swamp at this hour? Or ever?
“Oh, yeah,” Des agreed, getting up and making as if to follow them. Charlie flipped him the bird without even turning around. He just grinned, sitting down again.
“Have fun,” Miguel added wryly.
“Yeah,” Rose said with a sigh, falling into step beside Charlie. “You’re lucky I fell for you, you know. Because that couch was really comfortable.”
“Thanks for the sacrifice, dear,” Charlie replied. “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Probably fall off the stupid course, knock yourself into a coma, and lie there in the mud until someone came through tomorrow morning and found you dying of exposure.” She felt like being cruel all of a sudden, and she couldn’t explain why. Except that the way Charlie fought with everyone was contagious sometimes.
“More likely lose it,” Charlie replied offhand. “Get locked up again, self-destruct, and spend the rest of my life mean and lonely without you.”
She almost couldn’t answer around the sudden lump in her throat. “You’re already mean.”
“Well, I was lonely, too,” Charlie countered. She’d shoved her hands into her pockets as they swung around the corner and into the great room. Might as well give B Squad their chance. “Until you. Who knows what other miracles you can work.”
“Given enough time,” Rose managed, but her voice was soft and she’d never been good at talking about her feelings. Or anyone else’s.
“That’s what I figure.” Charlie looked right at her and smiled, so Rose had a good view of her face when Z’s voice yelled a greeting from the direction of B Wing. She rolled her eyes, stuck her tongue out, and played dead with the slightest tilt of her head.
“Hi, Z!” Rose called back, unable to keep the smile out of her voice.
“Hey, you guys want to come in for some ice cream?” Z bounded out with way more energy than anyone who had been assigned to decorate the entire base for the holidays--on top of her extended patrol rotation--should have. Unless, of course, she could do both things simultaneously, in numbers that bordered on ridiculous.
B Squad was full of some of the weirdest cadets Rose had ever met.
“Syd and I are trying to keep Sky from quizzing us on the manual,” Z continued. “He might be better behaved with company.”
Charlie snorted. “Not unless he’s grown a new personality in the last year.”
“Where’s Jack?” Rose wanted to know. She hadn’t had much opportunity to observe her fellow cadets since returning to Earth, but it didn’t take a genius to see the effect B Squad’s new leader had had on the team.
B Squad’s old leader, now. It was hard to get used to everything that had happened in their absence. Hard even to remember it, sometimes, let alone to comprehend it all. But it was clear that, whatever else had happened to Sky Tate while they were gone, he had finally found someone capable of loving as hard and as exclusively as he did.
“If you see him,” Z said, widening her eyes with false good cheer, “send him up here, would you? Before Sky drives us completely insane.”
“We will,” Rose promised, putting a hand on Charlie’s shoulder to keep her from speaking. “I’m going to take this one out for some exercise. Before she does exactly the same thing to our team.”
Charlie folded her arms, huffing in a way that made it clear what she thought of being compared to Sky. Ever. And in fairness, she’d never been much for the SPD manual, but she had the same drive when it came to training.
Z just grinned at Rose. “Red Rangers, huh? Must be something in the water.”
“Yeah,” Rose said, rolling her eyes. “The food coloring.”
“Well, there will still be ice cream when you get back,” Z told them. “I can’t promise we’ll still have a leader, but there’s definitely an endless supply of dessert. Where are you headed?”
This last was so casual that it caught Rose by surprise, but Charlie was already giving Z a narrow-eyed look that made the Yellow Ranger back off. “Right, sorry,” she said. “Not gonna follow you. But, look...”
She hesitated, then unclipped her morpher and held it out to Rose. “Take this, okay? People around here are still a little on edge, and there’s no telling what you could run into if you go into the city. Call us if you need anything.”
Rose accepted automatically: someone handed her something, she responded by taking it. But Charlie was still staring at Z. “You can’t just give away your morpher. What if B Squad gets a call?”
Z shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “I’ll send Kat. She’s Jack’s Yellow now. And believe me, she needs something to do. She’s got Boom and Sophie down there in the lab inventing cold fusion or something.”
Charlie and Rose exchanged glances. “What’s she doing in the lab on a patrol night?” Rose asked carefully. Jack had mentioned that Kat retained control of the tech department, even with her morpher, but whether Kat herself needed a lot of sleep or not, her human lab rats did. Boom had a morpher now, too.
“Traditionally?” Z asked. “Being pissed at Cruger. Tonight in particular? I don’t know. Bridge has been making noises about rescuing Boom for the last half hour or so, but I’m pretty sure if he goes down there he’ll just get sucked into it with them.”
“Um--”
Rose had been ignoring the C Squad cadet who had wandered through the great room while they were talking, but now she was hovering just outside easy conversation range, looking torn. Her reluctant interruption had been halted by the sharp look Charlie shot her as soon as she spoke. Rose smiled at her in apology, recognizing the girl as one of the new cadets who had helped them out in A Wing earlier.
“Hi,” Ruby said, awkwardly, looking very young in her purple star pajamas. “I... it’s just--Boom? I could get him out of the lab, if you wanted.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Z assured her. “Jack will show eventually and we’ll send him down.”
The corner of Ruby’s mouth quirked, and Rose saw a brief flash of the self-possession that had gotten this cadet through orientation, onto D Squad, and promoted to C Squad tech. “I’m actually pretty good at lab moderation. After all--” She held her hands out to the sides. “You don’t really think Kat could be mean to someone in fuzzy pajamas, do you?”
“Yes,” Charlie muttered, but Z was eyeing Ruby speculatively.
“You’re not bad,” she decided, with a frankness that probably hadn’t gotten her far in SPD. “You want a cover story or something?”
Ruby’s smile vanished as quickly as it had come, her sudden solemnity making her look young and vulnerable again. “No need,” she said, very seriously. “It’s all in the slippers.” Equally fuzzy, Rose noted, with a little duck beak on the front of each one.
“You’re a brave woman,” Z told her.
Ruby just grinned as she turned away. “Back in a few minutes.”
“We’re going too,” Rose said, feeling Charlie’s shoulder rise and fall in a silent sigh. “Good luck with the team. And thanks for the insurance,” she added, holding up Z’s morpher.
“Don’t lose it,” Z told her. “I don’t have any fuzzy pajamas.”
Charlie snorted, so Rose gave her a push. “Stairs for you,” she said. “We’ll be careful,” she added, waving the morpher at Z as she followed. “You’ll have it back as soon as we are.”
They did take the stairs--which they were definitely not going to do when they came back--and security acknowledged them on their way out but didn’t make any move to stop them. The courtyard blazed bright as daylight, if significantly more surreal, when they finally stepped outside. There were officers there too, but the memo must have circulated by now because they were again allowed to pass.
“I don’t know what’s weirder,” Charlie said under her breath. “Being here, or...” She trailed off, and after a moment she just shook her head.
“Or being here,” Rose finished quietly. “I know what you mean.”
Charlie didn’t answer, but her silence was enough. Only when they reached the entrance to the remote base training site did she seem to rouse herself. “Oh, yeah,” she said aloud, smirking at the shadowed obstacle course that snaked off into a gloomy and unlit swamp. “This should go well.”
Rose rolled her eyes, looking for and finding the observers’ station. “I’ll just be over there,” she said, waving vaguely in that direction. Sitting down, hopefully warm if not exactly cozy. Trying not to fall asleep.
“You’re not going to do it with me?” Charlie pretended to be surprised. “And here I thought you loved me.”
“I love you enough to sit outside on a cold, dark night while you pretend you’re John McClane in the middle of a mud swamp,” Rose said firmly. “Because I love you, I will make sure you don’t kill yourself, and I will not accompany you because then I would have to kill you, and no one wants that.”
“But it’s a race,” Charlie wheedled, as though she hadn’t even spoken. “What good is an obstacle course without two people to run it?”
“Pretend you’re going against Sky,” Rose told her. “Otherwise, put me down for ‘last’ and come back when you’re done.”
Charlie grumbled, but she let it go, and Rose hugged her sweatshirt tighter around her as she watched the woman too stubborn to die stride off into the swamp alone. “Don’t get hurt,” she whispered, mostly to herself. “We still need you.”
She wasn’t the only one who loved Charlie Carrera.
prompt #5: dead last
word count: 3100
rating: T (for language)
summary: Charlie, like every Red Ranger before her, has trouble with downtime. Rose understands.
author's note: Ruby appears with written permission of purplestripe66 and my love ♥
Team Building with Jack Landors (dead last)
by *Andrea
Back in the A Wing lounge for the first time since... she drew a blank, maybe because her mind refused to work after a day like this and maybe because she was half-asleep. She was leaning against Miguel, watching Charlie pace through half-lidded eyes while Des rediscovered the joys of a giant flat screen. It seemed, in some weird way, like they’d never even left. Like maybe they’d been here all along, and the last year had just been a bizarre dream.
Except that now, whenever one of them left their wing, a member of B Squad would mysteriously appear. Chatting, helping, or otherwise accompanying them without making it seem like they were under guard. Because they weren’t, Rose understood... but not everyone on base knew what to make of them, and the Rangers were trying to set the tone. Or possibly to protect them. She hadn’t ruled that option out.
“Hey, moto,” Des said, out of the blue. There was a long pause while the sound of cheering and motors revving filled the lounge, and then he remarked, “This is less cool than I remembered it.”
Charlie didn’t answer, but Miguel rumbled something about machines and food and then his translator picked up and she couldn’t focus on his own words anymore. “Frivolous mechanical things aren’t as impressive when you keep thinking how much food that level of technology could produce.”
“Uh-huh,” Des agreed, clearly not listening. Rose squeezed Miguel’s arm without lifting her head, letting him know that she’d heard. His fingers twitched in return, and she snuggled a little closer, glad at least one person was willing to cuddle tonight. Nights had been sticky in the jungle, but she missed the group huddles against bugs and predators and creeping loneliness and fear.
Jack’s team had joined them for dinner. Of course. Or rather, Jack and most of the other Rangers had closed ranks with them in the mess hall that evening, since it was sort of hard to tell who was on his team and who wasn’t, sometimes, and the younger cadets seemed understandably reluctant to socialize with people who had taken the base commander hostage. Jack, she thought, didn’t have that problem, and she wasn’t how much that had caused or been caused by his obvious conflict with Cruger.
“We could leave,” Charlie said suddenly. “Can you believe that? We could just walk out of here. Off the base, into the city... away from Earth, if we wanted to. We’re free to go.”
Don had. The whirlwind chaos that was the current A and B Squads had swept through A Wing and left it more than livable in their wake. They had apologized profusely for the dusty and vaguely creepy atmosphere of a place so long abandoned, but Rose found it oddly touching that their old rooms had been left, waiting for their return.
Or in memorial. That was admittedly creepier, and the sight of her nightgown stuffed under Charlie’s pillow had brought tears to her eyes. When Charlie had stepped on the “chick” magnet Rose had thrown at her the morning A Squad was roused for temporary deployment to the Helix Nebula, Rose had had to send her out of the room while she picked up after the ghosts of their past selves. It wouldn’t do any good to have them both break down.
By the time they finished, dinner was almost over and Don was still carrying the standard issue backpack they’d given him on his way out of rehab. Stone and Cecilya joined them for their first meal in the mess, but he had left with them once it was over. She didn’t blame him--Stone had climbed into the window himself to get that paper angel off the tree when Dr. Coon came in to tell them Cruger had authorized their release, and the boy hadn’t let go of it yet--but she missed him. It felt wrong to have one of them gone, like she’d set her arm down somewhere and forgotten to pick it up again.
“I’m too tired to go anywhere,” Miguel said, and a moment later the translator repeated his words. “I think you’re all very ambitious, but I’ll be staying here over night, thank you very much.”
The translator didn’t actually render it as “thank you very much,” but rather, “assuming it’s all the same to you,” Rose noted with a small smile. Jack had finally managed to get him a new one, five very long days after they were committed to rehab. They hadn’t had any room to complain, especially when, with Kat’s help, the model requisitioned for Miguel was no less than the latest version of his old, highly sophisticated translation device. Rose had been sure they wouldn’t see its like again for years--possibly ever, depending on the team’s fate.
“I’m sure leaving the base would end up involving New Tech PD in ways I don’t even want to imagine,” Charlie said, biting off words in that way she had when she was impatient with herself and really wanted to take it out on someone else. “It feels so wrong to just sit here.”
Rose tilted her head on Miguel’s shoulder just enough that she could get an unobstructed view of their team leader. Because really, she was warm and comfortable and sleepy, and Charlie was going to have to look pretty bad for Rose to give that up just to make her a little calmer. The only way they’d survived such close quarters for so long was by knowing when to step back and let each other work things out for themselves.
Charlie looked like she was about to crawl out of her skin. Or punch something. Repeatedly. Possibly both, and that wild-eyed look did not bode well for any kind of restful sleep in their room tonight. Rose could sleep out here, or with Miguel, or even with Des if it came to that. But then Charlie would still look like this come morning, only more exhausted and that much closer to snapping.
Rose sighed, pushing herself up off of Miguel with some effort. “I’ll go get changed,” she said. “Don’t go anywhere yet.”
It felt pretty amazing to get up from the couch and just walk out of the room into a hallway that led somewhere. They could leave; that was true. Hard to believe, but true. The temptation to wander was overwhelming the draw of the warm and comfortable lounge... but she had said she was going to change, and the second she went past the lift someone from B Squad would inevitably appear and pretend they had been going whichever way she happened to be headed.
So she ducked into the room she shared with Charlie instead. She tipped the picture she’d just set out that afternoon face down, because no, seeing the two of them playing cards in the lounge a year ago was still weird. She switched her old too-big civvies for new squad pants, pulled on a heavy sweatshirt over her pink SPD t-shirt, and grabbed an extra tee for Charlie because she liked that NASA tank and didn’t want to have to try to find her another one.
When she returned to the lounge, she found Charlie and Des fighting over a pair of VR goggles. Like there weren’t six of them in the room. “Children!” she said loudly, clapping her hands twice. “Attention, please!”
Even Miguel looked at her, although Charlie smirked with the briefest glance and elbowed Don in the side. “Told you.”
“Dykes,” he grumbled, shoving her back. “You’re so messed.”
Rose glanced at Miguel, who shrugged. “They bet on what you were changing into. Des thought you’d come back wearing less. Charlie guessed more.”
“What!” Des protested, when Rose frowned at him. “She’s bouncing off the walls! Guys fix that with sex! That’s all I’m saying!”
“We’re going now,” Rose said firmly. She threw the extra t-shirt at Charlie. “Mud swamp. Leave the NASA shirt here; I like it.”
This drew no resistance from Charlie, who shucked her spaghetti strap tank in the middle of the lounge and tossed it into a chair while she pulled the regulation tee on in its place. Des watched, and Rose didn’t bother smacking him for it. Waste of time, she’d learned. Charlie would continue to not care, and he would continue to stare, no matter what she did. So she just waited, smiling at Miguel when he gave her a thumbs-up.
“You guys want to come?” Charlie asked, heading for the door like she already knew the answer. Which she did. Who wanted to be in the mud swamp at this hour? Or ever?
“Oh, yeah,” Des agreed, getting up and making as if to follow them. Charlie flipped him the bird without even turning around. He just grinned, sitting down again.
“Have fun,” Miguel added wryly.
“Yeah,” Rose said with a sigh, falling into step beside Charlie. “You’re lucky I fell for you, you know. Because that couch was really comfortable.”
“Thanks for the sacrifice, dear,” Charlie replied. “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Probably fall off the stupid course, knock yourself into a coma, and lie there in the mud until someone came through tomorrow morning and found you dying of exposure.” She felt like being cruel all of a sudden, and she couldn’t explain why. Except that the way Charlie fought with everyone was contagious sometimes.
“More likely lose it,” Charlie replied offhand. “Get locked up again, self-destruct, and spend the rest of my life mean and lonely without you.”
She almost couldn’t answer around the sudden lump in her throat. “You’re already mean.”
“Well, I was lonely, too,” Charlie countered. She’d shoved her hands into her pockets as they swung around the corner and into the great room. Might as well give B Squad their chance. “Until you. Who knows what other miracles you can work.”
“Given enough time,” Rose managed, but her voice was soft and she’d never been good at talking about her feelings. Or anyone else’s.
“That’s what I figure.” Charlie looked right at her and smiled, so Rose had a good view of her face when Z’s voice yelled a greeting from the direction of B Wing. She rolled her eyes, stuck her tongue out, and played dead with the slightest tilt of her head.
“Hi, Z!” Rose called back, unable to keep the smile out of her voice.
“Hey, you guys want to come in for some ice cream?” Z bounded out with way more energy than anyone who had been assigned to decorate the entire base for the holidays--on top of her extended patrol rotation--should have. Unless, of course, she could do both things simultaneously, in numbers that bordered on ridiculous.
B Squad was full of some of the weirdest cadets Rose had ever met.
“Syd and I are trying to keep Sky from quizzing us on the manual,” Z continued. “He might be better behaved with company.”
Charlie snorted. “Not unless he’s grown a new personality in the last year.”
“Where’s Jack?” Rose wanted to know. She hadn’t had much opportunity to observe her fellow cadets since returning to Earth, but it didn’t take a genius to see the effect B Squad’s new leader had had on the team.
B Squad’s old leader, now. It was hard to get used to everything that had happened in their absence. Hard even to remember it, sometimes, let alone to comprehend it all. But it was clear that, whatever else had happened to Sky Tate while they were gone, he had finally found someone capable of loving as hard and as exclusively as he did.
“If you see him,” Z said, widening her eyes with false good cheer, “send him up here, would you? Before Sky drives us completely insane.”
“We will,” Rose promised, putting a hand on Charlie’s shoulder to keep her from speaking. “I’m going to take this one out for some exercise. Before she does exactly the same thing to our team.”
Charlie folded her arms, huffing in a way that made it clear what she thought of being compared to Sky. Ever. And in fairness, she’d never been much for the SPD manual, but she had the same drive when it came to training.
Z just grinned at Rose. “Red Rangers, huh? Must be something in the water.”
“Yeah,” Rose said, rolling her eyes. “The food coloring.”
“Well, there will still be ice cream when you get back,” Z told them. “I can’t promise we’ll still have a leader, but there’s definitely an endless supply of dessert. Where are you headed?”
This last was so casual that it caught Rose by surprise, but Charlie was already giving Z a narrow-eyed look that made the Yellow Ranger back off. “Right, sorry,” she said. “Not gonna follow you. But, look...”
She hesitated, then unclipped her morpher and held it out to Rose. “Take this, okay? People around here are still a little on edge, and there’s no telling what you could run into if you go into the city. Call us if you need anything.”
Rose accepted automatically: someone handed her something, she responded by taking it. But Charlie was still staring at Z. “You can’t just give away your morpher. What if B Squad gets a call?”
Z shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “I’ll send Kat. She’s Jack’s Yellow now. And believe me, she needs something to do. She’s got Boom and Sophie down there in the lab inventing cold fusion or something.”
Charlie and Rose exchanged glances. “What’s she doing in the lab on a patrol night?” Rose asked carefully. Jack had mentioned that Kat retained control of the tech department, even with her morpher, but whether Kat herself needed a lot of sleep or not, her human lab rats did. Boom had a morpher now, too.
“Traditionally?” Z asked. “Being pissed at Cruger. Tonight in particular? I don’t know. Bridge has been making noises about rescuing Boom for the last half hour or so, but I’m pretty sure if he goes down there he’ll just get sucked into it with them.”
“Um--”
Rose had been ignoring the C Squad cadet who had wandered through the great room while they were talking, but now she was hovering just outside easy conversation range, looking torn. Her reluctant interruption had been halted by the sharp look Charlie shot her as soon as she spoke. Rose smiled at her in apology, recognizing the girl as one of the new cadets who had helped them out in A Wing earlier.
“Hi,” Ruby said, awkwardly, looking very young in her purple star pajamas. “I... it’s just--Boom? I could get him out of the lab, if you wanted.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Z assured her. “Jack will show eventually and we’ll send him down.”
The corner of Ruby’s mouth quirked, and Rose saw a brief flash of the self-possession that had gotten this cadet through orientation, onto D Squad, and promoted to C Squad tech. “I’m actually pretty good at lab moderation. After all--” She held her hands out to the sides. “You don’t really think Kat could be mean to someone in fuzzy pajamas, do you?”
“Yes,” Charlie muttered, but Z was eyeing Ruby speculatively.
“You’re not bad,” she decided, with a frankness that probably hadn’t gotten her far in SPD. “You want a cover story or something?”
Ruby’s smile vanished as quickly as it had come, her sudden solemnity making her look young and vulnerable again. “No need,” she said, very seriously. “It’s all in the slippers.” Equally fuzzy, Rose noted, with a little duck beak on the front of each one.
“You’re a brave woman,” Z told her.
Ruby just grinned as she turned away. “Back in a few minutes.”
“We’re going too,” Rose said, feeling Charlie’s shoulder rise and fall in a silent sigh. “Good luck with the team. And thanks for the insurance,” she added, holding up Z’s morpher.
“Don’t lose it,” Z told her. “I don’t have any fuzzy pajamas.”
Charlie snorted, so Rose gave her a push. “Stairs for you,” she said. “We’ll be careful,” she added, waving the morpher at Z as she followed. “You’ll have it back as soon as we are.”
They did take the stairs--which they were definitely not going to do when they came back--and security acknowledged them on their way out but didn’t make any move to stop them. The courtyard blazed bright as daylight, if significantly more surreal, when they finally stepped outside. There were officers there too, but the memo must have circulated by now because they were again allowed to pass.
“I don’t know what’s weirder,” Charlie said under her breath. “Being here, or...” She trailed off, and after a moment she just shook her head.
“Or being here,” Rose finished quietly. “I know what you mean.”
Charlie didn’t answer, but her silence was enough. Only when they reached the entrance to the remote base training site did she seem to rouse herself. “Oh, yeah,” she said aloud, smirking at the shadowed obstacle course that snaked off into a gloomy and unlit swamp. “This should go well.”
Rose rolled her eyes, looking for and finding the observers’ station. “I’ll just be over there,” she said, waving vaguely in that direction. Sitting down, hopefully warm if not exactly cozy. Trying not to fall asleep.
“You’re not going to do it with me?” Charlie pretended to be surprised. “And here I thought you loved me.”
“I love you enough to sit outside on a cold, dark night while you pretend you’re John McClane in the middle of a mud swamp,” Rose said firmly. “Because I love you, I will make sure you don’t kill yourself, and I will not accompany you because then I would have to kill you, and no one wants that.”
“But it’s a race,” Charlie wheedled, as though she hadn’t even spoken. “What good is an obstacle course without two people to run it?”
“Pretend you’re going against Sky,” Rose told her. “Otherwise, put me down for ‘last’ and come back when you’re done.”
Charlie grumbled, but she let it go, and Rose hugged her sweatshirt tighter around her as she watched the woman too stubborn to die stride off into the swamp alone. “Don’t get hurt,” she whispered, mostly to herself. “We still need you.”
She wasn’t the only one who loved Charlie Carrera.