Andros was the marrying kind. Or so Ashley had told him. Soon after she and Zhane had started planning their wedding, she'd begun to divide the world into two categories: those who were the marrying kind, and those who weren't.

Luckily that particular phase hadn't lasted long. She managed to classify the entire family, though, and he would sometimes be reminded of it at odd moments. Mostly when one of them did something unusually foolish, unusually romantic, or even unusually predictable--something they would all agree in retrospect that they ought to have seen coming, but somehow ended up surprising them anyway.

Like now. Like him standing just outside the lights of the Beach Club, ostensibly holding a conversation with Ty via hyperboosted morpher communication while what really had his attention was Zhane's slow stroll along the shore with his latest turned head. Like the revelation that the question on his mind wasn't, Will he sleep with him? but instead, Does he want to sleep with him?

Because Andros was the marrying kind. And it turned out that there were only two things he wanted from Zhane: his presence, and his happiness. He tried not to think about which was more important--he was frankly afraid of the answer. But once one of those was assured, he was completely confident in turning his focus to the other.

Zhane's presence was assured now. There was no longer any question in Andros' mind. Whether that was because of the ring, the last name, or the children, it didn't really matter. Zhane wouldn't walk out on his family.

So now he just had to make sure his friend was happy. If abandonment was no threat, then the list of things that could be done, acquired, or allowed had no limit. Zhane could have anything and anyone he wanted, as long as he honored his promise to return to Andros and his family at the end of the day.

"I suppose they don't have a bonfire," Ty's voice was saying in his ear.

Andros tried not to smile, even if he was facing away from the club. There were enough active Rangers here tonight that a determined eavesdropper could probably overhear his conversation. "They don't," he said. "You see the problem."

"Yeah," Ty drawled. "I see the problem, all right. Symptoms include avoiding your family, withdrawing from parties, and repeatedly contacting Border planets during your vacation to what is right now one of the safest places in the League."

"The problem," Andros continued, watching Zhane turn his new friend toward the horizon so he could point at something over his shoulder, "is a lack of worthwhile activity."

He could hear Ty grinning over the comm link. "You're looking for trouble, Andros."

"If you find any," Andros said under his breath, "send it my way." He didn't bother to deny it, since arguing with his team was mostly a waste of energy these days. They knew each other's reactions too well for pretense.

"Will do." Ty sounded amused. "Tell the others I said hi."

"Yeah," he agreed absently. The guy with Zhane was pointing now too, and they'd put their heads together in the deepening twilight. "I will."

He was tempted to call DECA, just for an excuse to stand here on the edge of the party a little longer. She would tell him whatever he asked. She could probably even manage a detailed report on the kids, no doubt still awake at the Hammonds' house, but he didn't really have an excuse. If anything was wrong, she'd have called them already.

Andros put his digimorpher away with some reluctance. Eating dinner had been the easy part. Unfortunately, dinner was followed by a lot of hanging around and talking, which he didn't particularly enjoy. Zhane and Ashley were good at it, and Kerone was clearly making use of a talent she couldn't possibly have honed on the Dark Fortress: pretending to listen to other people. She and Ashley were huddled around a table with a group of girls--two of whom Andros recognized from Rocky's dojo, while the other had held the Pink Turbo key before Cassie--and he didn't really want to walk into that even if he thought he'd be welcome.

Since they were busy, and he wasn't about to follow Zhane, Andros did a brief survey of the rest of the Beach Club. All of the Earth Rangers were there... even Gabe, who was on crutches tonight and had a sock pulled up over his cast to keep sand from getting in it. He'd heard Gabe had refused treatment for broken bones, which, as an active Ranger, seemed irresponsible at best and potentially fatal at worst. Andros didn't really understand what was going on, but Zhane had warned him not to ask.

Outside of the former Astro team and their new teammates, he didn't know that many people on Earth. He'd been told that everyone at the club knew the Rangers for what they were, had a morpher themselves, or had held one in the past. Apparently the owner had closed the place just before dinner for private use. Andros appreciated not having to watch what he said, but Earth's anonymity policy meant that the number of teams to serve over the years bordered on ridiculous, and he had no idea who most of these people were.

TJ didn't seem to be having any trouble. He either knew everyone or just acted like he did. His fiancee was chatting with what had to be another Pink Ranger, and Karen and Aoife had apparently adopted each other in their quests to understand foreign cultures. Karen seemed to be introducing Aoife to everyone who wandered by.

Just as it occurred to him that Saryn was mysteriously absent, and maybe no one would notice if he disappeared as well, Cassie caught his eye from the table she was sharing with Carlos. She waved to him, an obvious "come here" gesture that didn't surprise him nearly as much as the silent impression he received. Andros, it said. Come over here.

He didn't move. Since when are you telepathic? he demanded.

He could see Cassie smile from where he was standing, but this time he didn't get anything. She waved again, and he gave in. "What was that?" he wanted to know when he joined them. "How did you do that?"

"Hi Andros," Carlos put in. "Good to see you too."

Andros spared him a glance, nodding once. "Hey," he said. Then he turned an expectant look on Cassie and waited.

"It's from living with Saryn," she explained. "He taught me how to get a telepath's attention. Sorry if I startled you."

"Are you a telepath?" The other person at their table sounded young and curious and Andros had ignored her presence until she spoke. When she did, though, he caught her eye and knew immediately: Ranger.

An active Ranger, too, or it wouldn't have been so obvious. But he'd thought he knew everyone who was active on Earth this year, at least, and she definitely wasn't one of them. "Who are you?" he asked warily.

Cassie laughed. "This is Andros Tyuseabe," she told the other girl. "When he's polite, he's very polite, and when he's not, we love him anyway.

"Andros," she added, before he could protest, "this is Kim Hart, the Pink Ranger back when Earth was using Eltaran morphers. She gave her Power to Kat, who passed it on to me."

"Several quests later," Carlos added, but Andros wasn't listening.

"You're still an active Ranger," he told Kim.

She gave him a confused smile. "How do you know that?"

Cassie looked from one of them to the other, but Carlos didn't seem surprised. "I can feel it too," he admitted. "It's weird--like the Power recognizes her or something."

"It does," Andros said. "The longer you hold the Power, the easier it is for other Rangers to recognize you. Haven't you met people you knew were Rangers without having to ask?"

Kim shook her head, then hesitated. "Well," she said slowly. "Zhane. But he was wearing a uniform."

"A uniform you'd never seen, on a day when half the people who walked by were dressed up as Power Rangers," Carlos pointed out. "She's right," he added, glancing at Andros. "You and Zhane are like that too."

It occurred to Andros that Kim probably hadn't met many Rangers who had held the Power longer than she had. "You've had it half your life?" he guessed, pulling out a chair next to Cassie and sitting down. When she just stared at him in surprise, he nodded. "Zhane too. I've had it even longer. You get used to it after a while, so relative exposure makes a difference."

"Hey, check us out," Cassie said with a smile. "We've found something Andros is willing to talk about. This is good."

He gave her a look while Carlos asked, "How can you still hold the Power if you gave it to Kat?"

"It's a long story," Kim said. She paused, like that was all she was going to say, and they waited. Finally she laughed--maybe at their expressions, maybe at herself. "Right. I forgot who I was talking to for a minute."

She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on the table. "About ten years ago, the conduit that Zordon's Power coins used to access the morphin grid was destroyed. My team went on a quest, and we all ended up with ninja powers that re-energized our coins. So we kept using them to morph."

With a tilt of her head, she added, "What we didn't get until later was that we were the new conduit. The Power was coming through us. Not to us."

"That's a ninja thing," Carlos agreed when she paused. "Ninjas can access the Power directly. They don't even need a morpher."

"With training," Kim said, giving him a significant look. "Which none of us had then. So I gave my morpher to Kat, moved to Florida, and I thought I was done with Rangering for good."

"How did she use your morpher?" Cassie wanted to know. "If she didn't have ninja powers?"

"She didn't need them," Kim said with a shrug. "I was still a conduit. She could access the Power through me without either of us having any idea what was going on. Except that I was still super strong, and really fast at healing."

"That didn't give you any idea what was going on?" Carlos sounded amused. "What happened when you tried to spar with someone normal and you knocked them flat on their back?"

"I was a gymnast," Kim told him. "I left Angel Grove to train for the Pan Globals, and I didn't have any time for martial arts after that. And we'd gotten used to being stronger than everyone else--you compensate for it, right? You don't even think about it anymore.

"Besides," she added. "All gymnasts are strong. Everyone I trained with in Florida was way stronger than average, and anyone who didn't heal fast worked through the pain, so I didn't stand out as much as you'd think. I didn't have any idea what was going on until Billy called me after the next quest and asked if I'd noticed any 'residual effects.'"

"Billy?" Andros repeated. He only knew one "Billy" who had used a morpher on Earth. "Billy of Aquitar?"

Kim smiled fondly. "Billy of Aquitar," she echoed, looking down at the table for a minute. "That's what he goes by now, isn't it. I always forget."

"Excuse me..." A familiar voice interrupted, and Andros looked around in surprise. Joy was standing there, dark even under the bright lights of the club. It took him a moment to reconcile her presence with their location.

"Sorry to interrupt," she was saying. "I was wondering if I could ask a favor."

Andros blinked. "Sure."

"Hi," Kim added, waving at her across the table. "I'm Kim."

"And I'm Cassie," Cassie said, smiling up at his neighbor. "How do you know Andros? We have to ask, because otherwise it won't occur to him to tell us."

"This is Joy," Andros said hastily. "She lives near Wayward, in Keyota." He gave Cassie a look, and she actually seemed a little surprised. Not because of his expression, he realized when she spoke.

"On KO-35?" Cassie looked from him to Joy and back again.

"I went to college here in California," Joy offered. "Music performance major at BBU."

"You came to Earth to go to school?" Carlos said, leaning back in his chair . "That makes me feel kind of like a dropout."

"Could that be because you..." Cassie pretended to think about. "Oh, right. Dropped out?"

"At least I started," Carlos returned, pulling in another chair from the table behind them. "I'm Carlos," he told Joy, twisting the chair around until it rested evenly at the table. "Sit down."

"Thanks!" Joy squeezed in between him and Carlos, maybe the slightest bit awkward but nowhere near as uncomfortable as he would have been in a group of relative strangers. "I didn't graduate either," she was saying, "if it makes you feel any better."

"Just coming to take in the local culture?" Carlos said with a grin.

"Yeah, kind of." Tucking her hair behind her ear, she gave Cassie a halfway embarrassed look across the table. "You were my inspiration, actually. You and Amanda, at KaliKay's? You got me hooked on Earth music. I had to come and learn something about it."

Cassie looked charmed. "You heard me sing at KaliKay's?"

"What's KaliKay's?" Kim wanted to know.

"Intergalactic bar," Carlos told her. "Giant biosphere on a terraformed asteroid. Dancing, live music, and free drinks for Rangers."

"Actually, I heard Amanda sing at KaliKay's," Joy said. "I heard you sing at Sylvan."

Carlos turned to stare at her in surprise. "You do get around."

She smiled, shrugging a little. "I like to travel."

"Um, not to keep repeating myself," Kim said, glancing around at them, "but what's Sylvan?"

"Sylvan, New Listrla," Cassie answered. "That's where I live. On Elisia. I did a lot of public singing when I first got there."

"Wow." Kim was looking at Joy with a combination of curiosity and bemusement. "So you just... travel from planet to planet? Studying music and listening to people sing?"

Something about her frankness made Joy laugh. "That would be my ideal life," she confessed. "I perform too, to pay my way, and I love it. But travel from frontier space isn't easy, and it isn't cheap either. Most of the time I stay out on the Border."

"How did you get to Earth?" Cassie wanted to know. "There's not a lot of public transportation out this way."

"Aquitar has a shuttle now," Carlos offered, and Joy was nodding even before he added, "They just added Earth to one of their local intergalactic routes. It stops by request only."

"Yeah," Joy agreed. "Which means you have to have a hyperboosted comm to get a pickup. I'm always so afraid of losing mine when I'm here!"

"It's not like you can call the ATA from just anywhere," Carlos said, grinning. "Silvy worries about that too."

"Are you staying in Angel Grove?" Cassie asked. "There's a couple of comm setups downtown that you could use in an emergency."

"At least a couple," Carlos muttered.

"This is Angel Grove," Kim reminded them. "Half the people you meet here are wearing intergalactic communicators."

"Oh?" Carlos raised an eyebrow at her, and she lifted her left hand. "Of course," he said, lifting his right and reaching out to bump fists with her. "Billy. I should have known."

"There's a hyperboosted comm system at Quest Karate, too," Cassie told Joy. "Rocky DeSantos runs the dojo, and everyone on his staff will know how to help you if you ever get stranded."

"It's like an alien safehouse over there," Carlos said. "Ninjas, Rangers, people from other planets coming and going..."

"Yeah, I heard he had to move the comm out of his apartment," Kim put in. "Too much traffic after Tommy and Kat moved and took their comm setup with them."

"Oh, that's what I wanted to ask you," Joy said suddenly. Putting both hands on the table, she turned all her attention on Andros. "My favor?"

"Hmm?" Andros looked away from the beach. He'd been listening. He just didn't care that much about the state of offplanet communications on Earth.

"Well, I was wondering--" She pulled an instrument out of somewhere and held it in both hands, giving him a hopeful look. "I really want Tommy Oliver to sign this. Do you think it's okay to just, you know, ask? Or would that be weird? It's not like I know him or anything..."

Andros frowned at the thing she was holding. "What is it?"

"Oh my gosh, the Dragon Dagger!" Kim exclaimed. She looked like she wanted to jump out of her chair and wave her hands in the air. Or laugh. Or possibly both. Andros kind of missed having a Pink Ranger on his team.

"Did you get that at Power Ranger Day?" Kim was asking. "Or Power Rangers Day? Whatever they're calling it now? Can I see it?"

"Who signed it already?" Carlos asked, as Joy passed it over to her.

"The band," Cassie guessed.

"Yeah," Joy admitted, her face a little flushed. "They all signed it for me, but I thought, wouldn't it be great to have the person who actually played it, um..."

Kim wasn't looking at her anymore. She had one arm over the back of her chair as she craned her neck, obviously searching for something. Or someone. They found out who a moment later. "Tommy!" she yelled, waving her free hand. "Hey, Tommy Trueheart Oliver! C'mere!"

Cassie laughed as Joy pretended to hide her face behind her hands. She peeked out between her fingers, laughing a little herself, and obviously making a show of embarrassment. She hadn't been shy about sitting down with them, after all.

Carlos chuckled too, and Andros felt himself smile, because Tommy had been talking to someone until Kim shouted for him. At the sound of her voice, he excused himself without hesitation. Andros felt his gaze slide across the entire table as he headed toward them, hesitating briefly on Joy, but the Black Ranger joined them by placing both hands on the back of Kim's chair.

"You called, Kimberly Ann Hart?" he said good-naturedly.

"Lose something?" she countered, beaming up at him as she lifted the Dragon Dagger over her head.

"Hey," Tommy said fondly, leaving one hand on the back of her chair as he took it from her. "That's not bad. Where did you get it?"

"It belongs to Joy," Kim said, waving in her direction. "She's from KO-35. She was visiting some college friends in Blue Bay Harbor and decided to come down for Power Ranger Day."

Tommy didn't bat an eye at this introduction. "Tommy," he said, leaning over Kim's shoulder to shake Joy's hand across the table. "Hi. Nice to meet you."

"You too," she said, clearly accustomed to Earth greeting rituals. "You, um, have a tribute band."

"The Dragon Daggers?" he said, smiling. "Yeah, they're good, aren't they? A lot better than I ever was."

"That's true," Kim said, nodding solemnly.

"Thanks for your support." Tommy patted her shoulder, and Kim leaned back in her chair to rest her head against him for a moment. "Really."

She flashed another brilliant smile up at him. "Always here for you."

"That reminds me," he said, squeezing her shoulder even as he turned his smile on Cassie. The Dragon Dagger was oddly unobtrusive in his other hand. "I was going to say something, later--you know, to everyone. To thank Ernie for this, and maybe just to thank the Rangers, for..."

He trailed off, but Cassie didn't look confused. She even nodded a little, like maybe she knew what he was trying to say. Finally he just said, "I thought maybe you'd want to join me."

"Yeah," Cassie said simply. "I'd like that."

Tommy glanced around, nodding once to Andros and again to Carlos. A silent acknowledgment, nothing more. At least, Andros hoped it was nothing more, because if it wasn't then he'd completely missed the message Cassie had received.

"Before you go," Kim was saying, reaching up to pat the hand that was still on her shoulder. "Joy would love it if you signed that."

"Huh?" Tommy glanced down at the Dragon Dagger, like he'd forgotten that he was holding it. "Oh, yeah. Sure. Got a pen?"

Kim glanced at Joy, who produced a black sharpie and a delighted grin. "Thanks!" she exclaimed, handing it over.

"No problem," Tommy replied, smiling back at her. "You want my name, or my Ranger title?"

"Which one?" Kim wanted to know.

"It's her Dagger," Tommy informed her. "She can pick her favorite color."

"Can you put both?" Joy asked eagerly. "Your name, and whatever color you are now."

Tommy grinned at that, an easy, relaxed expression that wasn't just him being polite. "Yeah," he said, "that's the story of my life. Tommy, the whatever-color-you-are-now Ranger. You got it."

He said it with no sign of regret, and he signed the Dagger with a flourish before recapping the sharpie and passing them both back across the table to her. "That okay?"

"That's great!" She hadn't even looked at it, but when she did she beamed at him again and repeated, "Thank you!"

"Just don't ask me to play it," he said with a smile, "and we'll call it even."

Cassie got up then, and the two of them started back the way Tommy had come. It was only after she had gone that Andros remembered to ask, "Hey, is there a reason I'm here?"

"The pleasure of our company?" Carlos suggested.

"Oh, right," Kim said abruptly, leaning forward. "Cassie said maybe you could help us."

"Semantic dispute," Carlos added. He didn't lean forward. He didn't lean back. His body language didn't change in any way, and Andros noticed. "We were comparing signing systems, and Kim wanted to know if Coralside's kinesthetic communication counts as a language."

Andros just looked at him. He had been convinced that he was smarter than Carlos when they first met. Knowledge of Earth's eccentricities aside, he had remained convinced of that for several years. Lately, though, he was coming to realize just how much he had underestimated the former Green Turbo Ranger.

"They call it gesturing," Kim explained. "A gesture system. Here that would be offensive, like if you called speech grunting or something."

"But on Aquitar, that's pretty much what they think of speech, too," Carlos said. "It is grunting, to them. Real language is what you use underwater."

"You can use sign language underwater," Kim pointed out. Carlos was already shaking his head, and she added, "I know, I know what you mean. I'm just saying--" She stopped, raising her eyebrows.

"The whole gesture system is based on dolphins," Carlos said. "At least, the one they use in Coralside is. Dolphins use kinesthetic communication for private conversations, and some of the culture researchers in Coralside adapted it so they could communicate the same way."

"So it was originally a natural language?" Kim pressed. "Before it was 'adapted'?"

Carlos was shaking his head again. "That's all I know," he said. "Really. I don't know exactly how the dolphins use it, I don't know how much whatever they do was adapted, and I don't know any of the signs you're using so I can't compare it to yours."

"That's why Cassie said we should talk to you," Kim told Andros. "She and Saryn learned a sign language for the twins, but none of us understand each other's signs, so we can't tell how they compare."

Andros just looked at her for a long moment. He glanced at Carlos and got a shrug, then at Joy, who was listening avidly. She just gave him an expectant look. "What do you expect me to do?" he asked Kim.

He saw Kim and Carlos exchange glances. "Cassie says you can understand foreign languages," Kim said carefully, her head tilted to one side. "She thought maybe the amount of information you'd get from the things we sign might tell us something about the level of language involved."

Andros shook his head, not saying no, just skeptical of their strategy. "Look, first off, the only sign language I've used is Cassie's, so there aren't any guarantees I'll be able to understand either of you. I mostly practice on spoken languages."

"It's just an experiment," Carlos said, waving the objection away. "If you can't understand it, no loss."

"Second," Andros said, trying not to bristle, "anything I understand, I just understand. I can't give you a report on its structure or its evolution or anything like that."

Kim shrugged. "Doesn't matter," she promised. "We were just curious. We'd hit kind of a language barrier when Cassie mentioned that you picked up the twins' language in about three seconds, that's all. If you don't want to do it, that's totally fine."

Andros shook his head again. What else did he have to do but be their test subject, anyway? "Go ahead."

"Okay," Kim said, glancing from him to Carlos. When she looked back at him, she added, "I'll just tell you... I don't know. How I learned to sign."

She lifted her hands over the table and signed, "When I was little, one of the girls on my gymnastics team was Deaf. We all learned to sign from her. Then my mom got this idea that it would be good for me to have a second language, so I started taking classes."

The story made Andros smile a little, and he signed back, "I had to have a second language to graduate, but Zhane and I were the colony's only Ranger team from the time we were eleven years old. Studying wasn't a priority. So I did whatever I'm doing now, and he cheated off of me."

Kim laughed. "Not exactly the model students," she signed.

"Not exactly the model childhood," he replied in kind.

"Okay," Carlos said aloud. "So we've established that Andros can understand American Sign Language."

"Your turn," Kim replied, still smiling.

"What did you say?" Joy wanted to know.

"I told her about my misspent youth," Andros answered. "Don't expect any secrets," he added, directing the comment at Carlos.

Carlos snorted. "There are a lot of things I don't need to know," he informed Andros. "What you and Zhane got up to when you were younger is probably one of them."

"What we got up to probably isn't a secret," Andros countered. "But if it makes you feel better, I'll promise not to tell you any school stories."

"School isn't a problem," Carlos signed to him. "I'd just rather not hear any stories about sex. Or sex-related activities. With anyone."

"Then I won't have much to say," Andros signed back.

Somewhat to his surprise, that made Carlos smirk, and this time it was Kim who demanded to know what what they were talking about. Carlos waved at Andros, Andros shook his head, and Kim shared a look with Joy. "I want to be able to do that," she declared, sounding more amused than insulted.

"Me too," Joy agreed, still looking from one of them to the other. "At least you understood one of those conversations."

"You didn't miss anything with ours," Carlos assured her.

"You can do that," Andros pointed out. "You play a hundred different instruments at the haven."

"Yeah, 'cause music is easy," she returned. "Language is hard."

"Language is easy," Andros corrected. "Music is hard. To me."

"What do you mean?" Kim asked, following to their conversation with interest. "How do you do that? Cassie just said you learn languages quickly."

"I don't learn them," he said, a little uncomfortable. "I just understand them when other people use them."

"Which is a lot faster than learning them," Carlos put in. "Believe me, I know."

An escalating whine got Andros' attention. No one else seemed quite as alarmed, but they were looking around too, and there was some kind of commotion at the front of the club. Then there was a repeated popping sound, and a man's uncertain voice said, "Hello?"

"Hello!" Kim called, and she wasn't the only one. She turned in her chair so she could see the source of the commotion, and she waved when the man up front with the microphone looked her way.

He smiled, lifting his hand in return. "Hi, guys," he said. "Can you all hear me?"

A couple of people shouted "yes!" from the tables farthest away, and someone whooped. Tommy was standing up near the man with the projection equipment, along with someone Andros didn't recognize. He saw Cassie leaning against Ashley over at the girls' table, listening along with everyone else.

"Great," the man declared. "A lot of you know me," he added, "but I see some unfamiliar faces, so... my name's Ernie. I used to run the Juice Bar downtown, the one Jerome and Adelle took over when I left? You younger folk might know it as the Surf Spot--"

Someone whistled, and Ernie grinned. His unhurried drawl didn't change. "Now I've got this place, thanks to some enterprising kids who took it over in my absence, and, uh, somehow didn't mind hiring me back on..."

"You never left, Ernie." It was a man in black at one of the front tables who spoke, and Andros recognized Emily by his side. "The Beach Club was always yours."

"Well, ours, maybe." Ernie hesitated, then held out a hand toward the man who had spoken. "Let's hear it for Emily and Jason, who brought this place to a real beach and kept it open all this time!"

There was a lot of clapping, and some yelling, and Andros wondered if he was supposed to know about this. No one had told him anything about the Beach Club, except that it was run by "Ranger sympathizers," like they were some sort of illicit underground. And that he didn't have to worry about what he said while he was there.

"At least," Ashley had added with a too-innocent smile, "no more than usual."

"And while we're at it," Ernie was saying, "let's hear it for you guys, because without you, none of us would be here. Thank you," he said, raising his voice to be heard over the cheers, "for saving our planet!"

He waited while people yelled and laughed and Andros glanced around his table, deciding that clapping seemed like the safest route. He assumed Ernie was talking about the Power Rangers. Just how many of the people here were Rangers, he wondered?

"Now I know," Ernie continued, when he could be heard again, "that on most planets, your identities aren't a secret. And, on most planets, you'd get all you can eat and drink for free. I wanted tonight to be my humble way of saying thank you, and maybe giving you a little of that recognition here at home."

He had to stop again, because someone had yelled "thank you!" back at him and this prompted another groundswell of noise and cheering and chatter. Andros took the opportunity to look back at the shoreline, scanning the nearly dark horizon for two figures down by the water. There was a couple down there, but something about them was off. He was sure neither of them was Zhane.

"I said I wanted to," Ernie was calling, above the sound of the crowd. "But someone else stepped up and offered to pay. I tried to turn him down, but... well, when I realized that he's about five hundred times richer than I am, it just made sense.

"So," he continued, "if you happen to see our anonymous donor around the club this evening, make sure you thank him for me." Andros frowned, but a covert glance around the table revealed Kim hiding a giggle and Carlos smirking openly. It was a joke he wasn't getting, then.

"In the meantime," Ernie added, "I'm going to turn it over to the young man who made quite a scene when he arrived in Angel Grove twelve years ago, and has continued to make things complicated as only he can by asking to use the mike to talk to you all tonight. Tommy, you know how hard this thing is to set up?"

Tommy just shook his head, clapping Ernie on the shoulder as he stepped up beside him and took the mike. "I've got a pretty good idea," he said. "And, uh, I've also got a message from your anonymous donor... who, by the way, was kind of hoping to remain anonymous."

Ernie just shrugged, folding his arms with a smile that conveyed no sympathy.

"He says," Tommy went on, "and, you know, pardon my language, but--" He looked very serious about this as he finished, "Payback's a bitch."

This was met with sporadic cheers, jeers, booing, and clapping. Andros couldn't figure out where the majority stood on this one. Tommy's expression broke into a grin, though, so maybe the apparent disapproval wasn't really. "Sure, guys," he told the microphone. "I love you too."

This time Andros really looked. He focused on the part of his mind that was almost always Zhane, and he let it turn his head somewhere to the left. Somewhere up the beach, then, but still close by. Closer than he'd been before, even. On his way back.

"I just wanted to say," Tommy insisted, and Andros couldn't tune his voice out. "That you guys really do mean a lot to me, okay? So thanks. Thanks for... doing what you do. And for being a part of something that turned my life around."

He paused for a long moment, and, surprisingly, there was actual quiet in between his words. It didn't look like he was trying to decide what to say--he seemed to be struggling with whether or not to say something in particular. And everyone saw it, and waited, and maybe that was enough.

Motion at one of the tables caught Andros' eye, and this time it was Cassie, making her way toward Tommy. He looked down, and his voice was quieter when he said, "I know I'm not the only runaway to become a Ranger." Cassie stepped right up against him, sliding an arm around his waist, and Tommy smiled down at her.

Draping an arm over her shoulders, he lifted his head and added, "I'm certainly not the only one to find my family because of the Rangers. Whether it's the family we were born to or not. I know everyone who's had a morpher knows how strong the bonds of the team can be."

"And how far they'll go for you," Cassie said, leaning a little closer to speak into the microphone. "It's not just that we'd die for each other--and some of us have," she reminded them. "But we give each other reasons to live, and sometimes that's even more important."

"Yeah," Tommy agreed, squeezing her shoulders. Andros wondered, idly, where Saryn was tonight. "I found my brother because of the Rangers. I met my wife because of the Rangers. I probably wouldn't have made it through high school if it wasn't for my team, and I definitely wouldn't have gone to college.

"When I say this turned my life around," he said, "I'm not kidding. I don't know who I'd be today without the chance Zordon gave me, and to be honest, I'm not sure I want to know. So... thank you. All of you."

He lowered the microphone a little, and Cassie took it gently from his hand. "When I arrived in Angel Grove," she told them, "I had a wallet and a walkman. TJ gave me a lecture. Kat gave me a morpher, and Dimitria gave me a chance.

"Ashley's parents gave me a place to stay on the condition that I finish high school," she added, "which I did. Barely. No thanks to my husband, who was also a Ranger, and kept needing to be rescued... Those absences were hard to explain to the teachers."

Andros thought the girls seemed to find this slightly more funny than the guys.

"But now we have a house, and a dog, and two point four beautiful children," Cassie continued, and the reason the provoked laughter was completely beyond him. "So thank you, Power Rangers, for giving me my happy beginning."

Ernie lifted his hands and started the applause for her, for them, even if it was clear after seeing them both together that Cassie would never stop being a performer. She proved it by waiting just long enough that everyone could see she had something else to say, and when they let her talk again she said, "I kind of wanted to play a song for you guys... is that okay?"

Judging by the reaction, that was more than okay, but Andros was distracted by a warm glow from behind him and a hand on his shoulder just as he was starting to turn. "Hey," Zhane's voice said, pitched to reach him and only him as he slid into the seat Cassie had vacated earlier. "Miss me?"

Andros caught his eye, and Zhane's expression softened. I know, his face seemed to say. Something else, something indefinable yet utterly familiar, let Andros know that whatever he'd been doing was worth it.

"Yeah," Andros murmured, and his lover smiled.

Zhane was happy.

"Hi," he declared cheerfully, spreading it around. "Joy! You came! See anyone you know?"

She beamed back at him, and it occurred to Andros that he might be at a table with three of the happiest people at the club. Only Ashley was missing. "Other than my favorite Rangers? Not yet!"

"Well, you don't really need anyone else when you've got us," Zhane told her blithely. "What about you, Kim? Where's your graceful and lovely companion tonight?"

"Suffering from jetlag," Kim answered, to Zhane's pretended disappointment.

"We are less without her company," he said gravely.

Andros couldn't tell if he deliberately excluded Carlos, or if he just didn't get to him before the activity at the front of the club drew his attention. "What's going on?" Zhane wanted to know. "Is Cassie going to sing?"

This seemed fairly obvious to Andros, so he just nodded, but Carlos said, "Yeah. She and Tommy both said something about how important their teams were to them, and then she asked if she could sing something for us."

"She can sing to me anytime," Zhane announced. "In fact, is someone recording this? Where's Saryn?"

Then, without waiting for an answer, he turned an unexpectedly sharp gaze on Carlos. "Where's Aura?"

Carlos looked taken aback, which was a more spontaneous reaction than Andros had seen from him since he'd sat down. "At home," he said. "She's pregnant."

"She's pregnant, so she's at home?" Zhane repeated.

"She's very pregnant, so she's under observation, so she's at home." Carlos glared at him. "Is that a problem?"

Zhane grinned suddenly. "More for you than for me, I guess."

There was a brief moment where no one at the table said anything, then Carlos seemed to understand. "Yeah," he admitted, relaxing enough to smile a little. "No kidding."

"Okay," Cassie's voice cut in, smooth and easy over Ernie's projection system. "I think we're all set here... and I think you'll get this song as soon as you hear it, so I'll just tell you that it's not mine: it was written and originally sung by Dar Williams. It's called 'You Rise and Meet the Day.'"

"Never heard of it," Zhane remarked, loudly enough to be heard. Andros gave him a look that he completely ignored, but Cassie just smiled in his direction.

"Zhane's never heard of it," she told the microphone, an unmistakable note of affection in her tone. Zhane seemed to have convinced a large number of people that his occasionally obnoxious behavior was a sign of love. "Until now," Cassie added.

Andros didn't know where the guitar had come from, but she made it sound pleasing and oddly familiar, even to someone who hadn't grown up with this kind of music. He used to hear it on the Megaship sometimes, and everywhere Cassie was, but Ashley didn't play it as much as she used to and there wasn't anyone else in the family who listened to it regularly. He should probably find out if she missed it or not.

Then Cassie's voice was murmuring, "We could pretend that we're walking on petals and light... golden light," and he found himself listening as quietly as they once had around the campfire, "flaunting our love like a dance step master, turning from left to right..."

Zhane's hand was back on his shoulder, a careful touch as he turned his chair so he could see better. "After all the colored lights are gone," Cassie sang softly, bent over her guitar with her eyes mostly closed, "time will leave the ashes and the dawn--"

She lifted her head then, staring past them toward the shore and the ocean beyond. "But you rise and meet the day..."

Sitting right beside him now, Zhane let his hand fall, and Andros shifted so that their shoulders were pressed up against each other. Cassie was looking at them now, at all of them, her gaze on the audience instead of the horizon. "Watching you go is like spying on hope: ever onward with more to burn," she told them.

"Giving your hands and your heart to the will of the world, though it fights each turn..." She caught Andros' eye and she smiled, though her words didn't falter, "you don't give up so easily--"

And her gaze wandered away again, including them all in her understanding, "That's how I know you won't surrender me," and Saryn was there, Andros finally caught his shadow in the dimness and he was surprised he'd missed it for so long, "you rise and meet the day..."

"That's all I need," Cassie sang, addressing her guitar again, letting her eyes slide shut, "that's all I need to know... it's all I need to know, and I love you all the time."

Zhane moved, his fingers twitching a little against Andros' back. Without a word, Andros turned enough that they could lean against each other and Zhane's arm went over his shoulders. His eyes sought out Ashley and Kerone, one whispering to the other behind her hand. They leaned into each other almost by accident, giggling inaudibly even in the momentarily quiet club.

"I had always feared some gloomy ingratitude would seize me," Cassie's voice murmured, "but you have held the dream, like every morning finds a way to hang the sun up in the sky, and now I think I have it too... the greatest part I learned from you, as you rise and meet the day."

Andros was smiling. He didn't mean to, but maybe she was right. Maybe they did understand, without her having to tell them. Or maybe she already had: It's not just that we'd die for each other--we give each other reasons to live.

His reasons to live had been running his life for a long time now, and he didn't want it any other way. Not when he knew what it was like to be in charge, to have ultimate control, the sole captain on a deserted ship. The only one whose input mattered because there wasn't anyone else. It was a way of life, yes. But it wasn't a reason to live.

"I could see kids," Cassie was singing, "maybe yours, maybe not... I can hear what they'll say, laughing at pictures with the old-fashioned hats and the clothes that we're wearing today..."

He felt Zhane kiss the top of his head, gently, conspicuously, and there were places where he might have protested such an eye-catching display of affection. But there probably wasn't any reason to make this one of them. He guessed that Zhane knew it, too.

"They will know the true and humble power," Cassie's voice reminded them, "of a love that made it through the darkest hour..."

He heard Zhane whisper, "You rise and meet the day," just as Cassie said it, and Andros turned his head enough that Zhane could feel it. I love you, a voice said silently in his mind.

"I love you too," Andros said aloud, quietly but undeniably.

"That's all I need," Cassie sang, soothing, beautiful, and true. "That's all I need to know... it's all I need to know..."

"Seriously," Zhane whispered, as the guitar drifted off. "Is Saryn recording this?"

"How would I know?" Andros murmured. Everyone was starting to clap, respectfully at first, gaining strength as it went, like they wanted to make sure she was done before they really made noise. Zhane's voice switched to his head again.

What I mean, he said deliberately, is that Saryn better be recording this, or I'm going to make Cassie sing it again so that I can.

Like Andros didn't know what he meant. He just smiled, because Zhane knew that he knew, and they were talking for the sake of talking now. Zhane was one of a very few people that he actually liked to hear babble. Maybe because Zhane didn't do it with any expectation that he cared, but Zhane cared enough to say it anyway.

Who was your friend? Andros wondered idly.

Green Ranger from one of the ninja teams, Zhane answered. Cam. Don't mention him to Joy, okay? He's dating one of her friends.

There was a time when Andros would have objected to the request in principle. He didn't go around deliberately interfering in other people's relationships--in fact, he preferred as little involvement as possible--and he didn't want to participate in their games. So Cam's date wasn't supposed to know he'd been with Zhane. It didn't have anything to do with Andros.

Or it hadn't, until he'd finally realized that if he didn't have anything to do with the things Zhane cared about, then he didn't have anything to do with Zhane. He didn't get to be just him, and whatever parts of Zhane fit into his life. He had to be both of them, the way Zhane was. The way Zhane had always been.

Okay, Andros replied, not moving. No problem.