[FFML] [one-shot] [Power Rangers: RPM] Sometimes

[StudioPC]

Still not dead yet.

If you haven't seen the series, you should. It's the Tim Burton Batman  
to the Adam West series.

Contains Spoilers . . . or at least, spoiler-ish things.

All rights to their owner.
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Sometimes, the others wonder how they wound up together. Even she  
wonders. Still, somehow, they manage. It's what they do.

She's not the easiest person to deal with, she knows that. Her social  
skills had been destroyed by Alphabet Soup and she remains driven,  
even after its defeat, by her guilt over the creation of Venjix. He's  
never held it against her. Perhaps that is why she loves him.

Love. What a funny word. A word, an emotion, a science whose rules she  
is still discerning. Even Gemma, who had been raised in Alphabet Soup,  
still seems to manage it effortlessly. Then again, she was always like  
that. Despite her fascination with explosives, Gemma could always make  
friends, and she never has. Yet, she tries, and isn't that the  
important part?

Sometimes, Mrs. Landsdowne brings up kids. Mr. Landsdowne died in the  
final battle against Venjix and the older woman assumed the job of  
taking care of the Garage, or rather, directing others of taking care  
of it. However humble she became since Summer's abortive wedding all  
those years ago, she still would never actually pick up a cleaning  
rag. Instead, she administrates and she feels that there should be kids.

Summer has kids, Gemma and Flynn are trying, Tenaya can't, and she  
never will. The thought of them, of her, being hauled off by another  
Alphabet Soup, terrifies her beyond any rational thought. He's never  
brought it up, perhaps understanding her fears, though she suspects  
that more likely, that its simply never occured to him. Summer's kids  
are more then enough.

They live in the Garage, as she cannot stand to be far from her lab,  
and the escape routes built into it, some known only to her. The habit  
of escape, of never being confined ever again, is well ingrained into  
her.

Sometimes, she hides in her backup lab. She has to. There, she  
feels . . . understood. Away from humans, away from confusion and  
social requirements, away from everything and most importantly,  
completly safe. Despite worrying, he's never asked her to stop. He  
only kisses her cheek and welcomes her back when she comes home. She  
knows he fears that one day, she will go in and never come out.

Worst of all, she knows that he's right to do so, because sometimes  
she's almost activated the seals and locked herself in. She hasn't  
yet, because of love, but one day, love may no longer be enough.

Sometimes, she tries to cook for him, a wifely thing to do, or so  
Gemma says. It never works, despite however much she tries and she  
can't understand it. It's just chemistry, really, and she mastered  
that by age . . . well, she was a child when she did. Alphabet Soup  
didn't really bother with birthdays unless you were the very best. She  
now knows it was to keep the kids from realizing that they were grown  
up and getting . . . ideas, but the notion still puzzles her. Gem, and  
Gemma understand, but they're the only ones who do. The only ones who  
can.

Sometimes, she calls up a file on her computer, but doesn't open it.  
Scott found it in the ruins of Alphabet Soup. Inside that file is her,  
the girl she was before Alphabet Soup, when she had a name instead of  
a letter. That little girl scares her. She can't face that little  
girl, and so she keeps it closed. Because once she opens it, that  
little girl will judge her. Judge what she became in Alphabet Soup,  
judge her for Venjix and she cannot face it. Not yet. One day, she  
will have to open that file, to face the last piece of her past. But  
not now, not yet.

Sometimes, she dreams, of Venjix, of a woman she thinks might be her  
mother, of what she imagines a normal life must be. But it always  
comes back to Venjix and what he did, what she caused. When that  
happens, she wakes up screaming and he holds her until she stops,  
until the screams become sobs, and then until even the sobs fade away.

Sometimes, in the dead of night, when they are alone, when they are in  
bed under the covers, and when the darkness inside is too much, she  
tells him about Alphabet Soup. About the routine, about the horrors,  
and once, once she told him about Assessment.

No one at Alphabet Soup liked Asessment. Even Gem and Gemma, who would  
cheerfully face Death itself, feared it. Nothing permanent of course,  
Alphabet Soup liked the children to be fit and strong, but there were  
stories of the ones who failed it. They would disappear, for days,  
weeks, or months, and come back, obedient and silent. From then on,  
they would work and nothing but work, and suggesting a recreation  
break would cause them to recoil in fear, the only emotion they ever  
show. They work until they collapse. Then they are never seen again.

That, more then then the desire to go outside, almost as much as the  
revelation that she and the others had been lied to about being  
allergic to the sun, is what drove her to release Venjix. The fear  
that one day she would fail and become one of those lost souls. That  
they would take the last part of her that was still hers.

Fear. Fear and responsibility. Those are the twin demons that drive  
her. Fear that one day she would be found out as the person who  
released Venjix on the world, and the responsibility that he got out  
because she had been too slow to install the firewall. She should have  
fought the soldiers harder. Should have had the firewall already  
installed. Should have just been better.

Sometimes, they fight. He's a slob, almost ruthlessly disorganized,  
and militantly indifferent to the finer points of hygine. She favors  
rigid order, another mark left on her by Alphabet Soup. Her morning  
ritual is brisk, organized, efficent. His is not. In fact, it is  
anything but. At the school, her office is neat, tidy, a place of  
business. The same for her classroom. His is not. The dichotomy  
surprises and intrigues her, but sometimes, she wishes they were more  
alike.

Sometimes, he surprises her. The cooking, his ability to bond with  
students and perhaps most of all, his touch. His touch, his ability to  
immolate her in the fires of pure sensation remains a constant and  
pleasant surprise. Some of that, Gemma says, is love. Summer agrees  
with Gemma, and if any of them would know, it's Summer. The only one  
of them with anything like a normal childhood and dating experience.  
There is still so much she doesn't know, so much she wants to know.

Sometimes, she tells him she loves him, and she does, even if they  
haven't quite figured out what love is. Still, they manage somehow.  
It's what they do.