Carlos gasped, coming awake with the sharp burst of adrenaline usually reserved for nightmares or his little brother yelling in his ear. His heart was pounding, and though he knew he was waking up, for a brief moment he had no idea where.

Then the bright red glow that was DECA checking on him pierced his night-darkened vision, and he turned his head away. He had forgotten to turn his laptop off, and he squinted against the unnatural brightness of the soccer ball screensaver as he sat up. The red shadows in the room disappeared as DECA withdrew wordlessly, leaving the bouncing black and white ball as the room's only illumination.

The Megaship, then, not Aquitar. He took a deep breath, flinching away from the memory of the dream. He'd had that one before. Last time, it hadn't ended with him kissing her...

He swallowed, glancing around the room. He didn't know whom he expected to find watching him, but he couldn't help feeling guilty. What was wrong with him? He *had* a girlfriend, and here he was dreaming of someone else. Again.

"Talk to Ashley," the Karen in his vision had said. Maybe that was his subconscious trying to tell him something. He didn't know, but he really needed to talk to *someone* right now.

"DECA?" he asked. His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears, and he cleared his throat as DECA's camera blinked on again. "Is Ashley sleeping?"

DECA seemed to consider that, though Carlos knew she could run through the privacy rules they'd established before he even noticed she had paused. "No," she told him. "Ashley is awake."

He pushed himself to his feet, not stopping to question his good luck. He didn't even bother to ask what time it was, but as he approached the door something brought him to a halt just before the motion sensor would have recognized his presence. "DECA?" he said again, catching the faint sound of laughter in the hallway. "Who's in the hall?"

There was another pause, as though she was waiting for him to think better of his request. "Kerone, Ashley, Cassie, TJ, Aura, Tessa, and the Phantom Ranger are in the corridor," she replied, listing them in a matter-of-fact manner that was lost on him. Aura's name leapt out at him and froze him in place.

He fought the urge to ask what Aura, of all people, was doing on the Megaship. DECA would never tell him, even if she knew. But there was no way he was going out there--if there was one person he couldn't face right now, it was Aura.

"Show me," he said, before he realized what he was doing.

DECA's camera blinked at him, but the corridors had been ruled public space when the team got together a couple of months ago and decided what they were and were not allowed to find out from DECA. His room's computer terminal sprang to life on the wall opposite his laptop, and he turned to look reluctantly.

Aura was facing the camera, sitting awkwardly on the goldenrod blanket that Ashley must have laid out on the metal deck. She was clearly listening to someone else talk, although there was no sound. He was allowed to observe, but not to eavesdrop.

From the way Tessa gestured, he assumed she was the one talking. Her back was to the camera as TJ lay on the blanket beside her, his head on her lap while he listened to whatever she was trying to explain. Kerone was on her other side, lying on her stomach and playing idly with a violet light that shimmered around her fingers. Cassie sat next to Aura, across from Ashley and beside Saryn, who looked for all intents and purposes to have dozed off.

It was a friendly circle, one that practically glowed with welcome and invited him to join them in the hallway. But Aura held his eye, dressed in clothes he recognized but had never seen her wear awake. Her dark hair hung loose for the first time since he had met her, and seeing her as she had appeared to him in his dreams was disorienting and a little frightening.

He reached out as if to touch the screen, but he caught himself before he actually did it. She was--beautiful. It had never occurred to him before, at least not when he was awake and thinking rationally. The Aquitians were different, and though it was easier to forget the longer he spent with them, it was always there. Had he thought about it, he would never have expected to find one of them truly beautiful.

It surprised him to think suddenly that Aura wasn't really Aquitian. She was, obviously, and she was proud of it. There was no reason not to be. But he hadn't been thinking of her that way just now, watching her smile at Tessa on the small computer screen. She was Aura first, and Aquitian second.

He remembered once, when he had considered telling her about the dreams he had had. It had been in that fog between sleeping and waking, for until recently he hadn't been able to remember them anywhere else. He had thought drowsily that she would find the idea of the two of them as a couple amusing, and that he should tell her the next time he saw her.

He was glad that he had forgotten the thought as soon as he came fully awake. As he stared at her now, without their differences imposing a psychological barrier between them, he didn't find the idea funny at all.

He turned the screen off abruptly. He wasn't going to stand there staring for the rest of the night. He went back to his bed and lay down, trying to convince himself that everything would make more sense in the morning. Or if it didn't, at least he wouldn't have to think about it for a few hours.

Sleep was impossible, of course. He had known that it would be, but he had to try. He was still too jumpy from that dream and too impatient with his own confusion to be able to lie still for long. He sat up again, staring around the darkened room. He needed to do something, to get away somehow, before the inaction made him so frustrated that he did something crazy.

Glancing down at his bare wrist, he frowned irritably. Jeff had kept his morpher long enough to take Mega V2 back to Earth, and TJ probably had it now. "DECA," he said, looking up. "Can you call Mega V2 for me?"

"Where are you going, Carlos?" The camera's light was steady, giving the impression of staring at him.

He sighed. "I don't know. Away. Earth."

"You do not have your morpher," DECA reminded him, as though he might have forgotten. "You will have no way to contact the rest of the team."

"Mega V2's comm system was working fine the last time I checked," Carlos told her. "If I set down anywhere I'll stay nearby."

DECA did not reply, but a moment later she announced, "Mega V2 is online."

"Thanks," he said shortly, getting to his feet. He changed into a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt, wanting to leave his Astro uniform as far behind as possible.

"I'm ready," he told DECA.

The camera light blinked at him. "Preparing to teleport."

He nodded, and the world turned bright black. The teleportation stream dropped him neatly in the cockpit of Mega V2, and he settled into the pilot's chair with something like relief. This he knew. This he understood. He pushed the thrusters to maximum and the little zord leapt forward, eager for the race toward lightspeed.

DECA had uploaded a hyperspace vector for Earth into his computer without being asked, and the zord tossed the chains of lightspeed-limited travel aside without hesitation. The cockpit hummed happily around him as the phantom swirls of hyperrush moved in, obscuring the view from the EM scanners as he left the Aquitians' galaxy behind.

The numbing abstractness of hyperrush faded away far too soon, and for a second he considered letting the zord escape back into that anonymous void. But he couldn't help smiling as Earth came into view, the blue-green and white just as comforting in a different way. This was a view few people from Earth had ever seen, and it reminded him all over again how lucky he was.

*Lucky,* he thought wryly, setting the computer to work on an entry vector. *Yeah, I'm lucky to get offplanet and meet a whole new crowd of people to be totally confused by.*

The computer chimed softly, and he accepted a vector that would set him down near the lake. The night was clear and cooler than usual for September as he teleported onto the same sheltered beach where they had met the Aquitians more than a month ago. It was calm now, and a perfect hiding place for his now-invisible zord.

The cloaking effect was a useful one, he had to admit. It had been Saryn's idea, implemented only last week by himself and Aura. He smiled a little, sticking his hands in his pockets as he wandered down the beach. Billy had considered helping for all of two seconds, before Cestria convinced him that he was needed on Aquitar more.

*Probably not for Ranger duties, either,* he mused.

The water was serene and peaceful in the starlight, but as he reached the end of the beach he just kept walking. There was a path that, if followed to its end, connected the park and the lake, and he let it lead him away from the beach. The shadows crept in around him as the trees reached overhead, but it never got quite dark enough to obscure his vision.

He welcomed the walk, welcomed the concentration it took to keep from tripping in the darkened woods. It did occur to him at one point that strolling through the forest in the middle of the night wasn't the safest thing he could be doing, but he figured the odds of something happening on exactly this night were low.

*Yeah, the same as on any other night,* he thought idly. *And yet things happen.*

Still, he was better able to defend himself than pretty much anyone in the city. He let thought slip away and just concentrated on walking. He wondered once how far he would get before he grew bored with it, but didn't give the question serious consideration until he reached the sidewalk bordering the west side of the park.

He paused there. "I'm a long way from the lake," he said aloud, just to see how it sounded. Shaking his head, he realized "a long way" was a significant understatement. He'd probably been walking for hours.

*Carlos,* he thought firmly, *you need some help.* He could feel exhaustion creeping up on him while he hesitated, but the strange urge to walk returned as soon as he put one foot in front of the other.

He forced himself to stop again, considering. He couldn't teleport back to his zord. He didn't want to walk back. And without his communicator, he was truly alone. *Where would a normal person go if they were wandering around the city at night?* he wondered.

He couldn't help chuckling at the obvious answer. *Home.* He hadn't thought to pick up his keys before he left, but he knew where the spare was hidden. So he headed for home.

He almost got there. But the reflective street sign reading "Carista Drive" brought him up short not more than a mile from his own neighborhood. *What could it hurt?* he figured. He'd just walk by, see if there were any lights on... she'd said she'd be getting back late. He didn't have the faintest idea what time it was, but it was without question late.

Not late enough for her to be in bed, apparently. He could see the light in Karen's room from the street, and he went up and tapped on her windowsill before he could seriously consider whether or not it was a good idea.

The curtain was flung back, and Karen squinted out at him. Recognition flashed across her face almost immediately. "Carlos!" she hissed, glancing over her shoulder. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged, not particularly sure himself. "Don't know. I saw your light on."

"What are you doing out at two in the morning?" she whispered, resting her elbows on the windowsill and staring at him.

He couldn't help smiling ruefully. "I've been asking myself that for at least the last hour."

She studied him curiously. "Carlos, are you okay?"

He tried not to sigh. "Probably not," he admitted. "I'm..."

"What?" she asked, when he stopped. "What's wrong?"

"I'm so confused," he muttered. "I don't really *know* what's wrong."

She looked over her shoulder again. "Want me to come out? I'd invite you in, but my parents are sleeping..."

Carlos hesitated. He desperately wanted to accept her offer, but she was probably the second worst person in the universe for him to be talking to right now. "I'm not sure," he said awkwardly, trying to think of some way to explain it without actually explaining it. "I don't know if I *can* talk to you about this. It's... I think maybe I have to work it out in my own mind first."

She leaned on the windowsill again, chin on her hands as she regarded him intently. "Sounds like one of two things," she remarked at last. "God, or another girl."

"God?" he repeated, startled.

"Well, you know," she said. "Faith. Destiny. The master plan, and your place in it." She smiled at his expression. "Life the universe and everything, as Douglas Adams would say. I didn't really think that was it."

"No," he said quietly. "Although," he added a moment later, "now you've got me wondering."

She let out a soft breath of amusement. "Here, I'll come outside. Don't go anywhere."

The curtain fell back across the window as she turned away, not waiting for his reply. The light went out, and a minute later he heard the front door creak open. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he walked across the lawn to join her. He couldn't help but wonder why he wasn't nervous--she had as much as said she knew what he was thinking about, and he still had no more idea what to say than he had when he'd arrived.

"Hey," she greeted him again, stepping off the front steps. "Aren't you cold?"

He shook his head automatically, only realizing afterward that it was the truth. "I've been walking forever," he said, following her down the walkway toward the driveway. "No better way to stay warm."

"How long have you been wandering around?" she asked, stopping in the driveway where at least they weren't directly in front of the windows. The streetlights provided just enough illumination that he could see her concerned expression.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "I walked from the lake."

"The lake!" She stared at him. "At night? Carlos Vargas, are you crazy?"

"Maybe," he admitted, glancing down at his wrist.

She didn't miss the significance of the gesture. "You haven't done something really drastic, have you?"

He flexed his hand briefly, looking up and managing a quick smile. "I haven't quit, if that's what you mean. I just... needed to be away from it for a while." It was a half-statement that could be taken in any number of ways, but she didn't seem to mind.

"Well, that's good." Karen waited, but he didn't know what else to say. "So who is she?" she asked finally.

"It's not like--" One look at her patient expression convinced him to swallow his objection. Glancing away, he muttered, "I don't think you know her."

"Not from Earth?" she guessed.

He blinked, startled into catching her eye again. "How do you *do* that?"

She laughed. "Carlos, you haven't been spending enough time around here to have gotten interested in another girl. It would have to be someone you knew from... somewhere else."

He frowned, shifting his weight uneasily. "It's not that I'm interested in her, exactly. She sort of has this--this crush on me, and I can't seem to say anything right around her since I found out."

"So you don't like her?" Karen asked, giving him a curious look.

His frown deepened. "I *like* her, I just... I don't know. It doesn't matter now anyway," he added with a sigh. "She's probably never going to speak to me again."

"And you're moping around the streets at two in the morning because of it," she said, wry amusement in her tone. "I can see it doesn't bother you at all."

"She's been such a good friend," he said defensively. "If she never talks to me again, I'll have lost that."

"What did you fight about?" Karen asked, diverted. "If you don't mind me asking."

He scuffed his toe against the ground, remembering that part of the conversation in vivid detail. "She said she didn't want to be friends anymore. She said I've been acting differently since I found out... how she feels about me, and she can't be friends with me like that."

"Differently how?" she prompted.

He shrugged uncomfortably. "I guess maybe I pay a little more attention to her now. But it's only because I don't want her to feel bad," he hurried to add, and then wished he had waited and thought. That wasn't true at all, and he knew it. He had known it for some time.

"I hope you didn't tell *her* that," Karen murmured.

"Not--exactly," he said, trying to call to mind how much he might have implied with the way he had acted.

She sighed. "I wish I could call her up and explain you or something. You do realize that if you don't tell her how you feel she's probably never going to forgive you?"

"Yeah," he muttered. Then he realized what he'd said, and he glanced up to search her expression. "I mean, she knows how I feel. There's nothing else I can do."

"You could start with 'I'm sorry I'm such an idiot,' and the conversation would probably just go from there," Karen suggested under her breath. "Look, Carlos, she obviously doesn't know how you feel or she wouldn't have gotten upset with you. You're just going to have to tell her--things won't get any better until you do."

"But what am I supposed to say to her?" he demanded.

"Say 'I love you,'" she advised. "Gets 'em every time."

He stiffened. "But I don't--"

"Don't what?" she prodded, when he hesitated.

"I don't... I don't *know* if I love her," he said, frustrated. "And--I'd hate to be wrong about something like that."

Karen pressed a finger to her lips, looking thoughtful. She didn't answer for a moment. The silence grew, and he couldn't help thinking he should say something. This was his fault, after all; it wasn't her problem. As he started to speak, though, she motioned for him to wait.

"You know," she said at last, "I don't think I've ever been in love. I mean, I like you a lot, and I've had a great time going out with you these past few weeks. You're a wonderful guy."

He managed to smile when she paused. "You're pretty wonderful yourself," he told her, feeling even guiltier than he had before. "I'm really sorry to be throwing this at you now..."

She waved it away. "No, I'm glad you told me. I wish I had some better advice, but all I can say is that I've wondered if I was in love a couple of times. Once I even told my mom about it." She smiled a little, and he knew how that was unusual in her family. "She said what everyone says: if you have to ask, it isn't love."

He sighed. "I've heard that too," he said quietly. "That's sort of what worries me. What if I say something to her, and then find out it isn't true? I don't think there's anything I could do that would hurt her more."

She smiled a little. "Well, the fact that you're more worried about her feelings than yours must mean something. I'm not really sure about that having to ask thing anyway. I mean, who wouldn't ask?"

*Cassie,* he thought. *Saryn. Andros and Ashley, even if they weren't quite sure of it at first. And TJ. Of course, he cheated...* Aloud, all he said was, "I can think of a few people."

"Your friends are weird," she told him bluntly. "And I mean that in the nicest possible way, because you know I like them. I just don't think it happens that way for most people. Maybe there are some couples that fall in love at first sight, but most of us start out as friends and don't quite notice when we cross the line into something more."

"It must be one heck of a thin line," he remarked. He scuffed the toe of his sneakers against the pavement, a little annoyed with the vagueness of everything.

"Yeah," she agreed. "I think it is, too." There was a grin in her voice when she added, "I can give you the three tests of true love, if you want."

He looked up warily. "What?"

She shrugged. "A friend of mine has these tests. She says they're the three tests of true love. I don't know how true they are, but at least they're more interesting than the 'if you have to ask' thing."

"All right," he said with a sigh, wondering what he was getting into. "Go for it."

"Well, you have to remember it's not about whether you're friends or not," she told him. "It assumes you're already dating. The questions are about whether you really love someone or just think you do."

He held his hands out to the side. "Fine. I think I love her."

"And they're for people in high school," she reminded him.

"Right," he agreed. "She's in high school. Got it." He did try to picture her in jeans and t-shirt, backpack over her shoulder as she wandered through the halls of AGH, but the image only made him shake his head. Aura would have no patience with their school... although it did make him wonder what kind of school *she* had gone to.

"Okay," Karen said. "So the first question is, what would you do if you found out someone else had asked her out?"

He frowned. "Did she say yes?"

"You don't know," she informed him.

"Then I'd find out." He really didn't know what he'd do after that, though the thought that someone else might be after her troubled him. She'd never even met Karen, so he had no reason to assume he knew who was in *her* life. He couldn't help remembering Cestria say, "Maybe you do not know her as well as you think."

"What if she had said yes?" Karen asked. "That's not one of the questions; I'm just curious," she added, a half-smile on her face.

He shrugged uncomfortably, looking down at the ground again. "I don't know. I'd--be upset, I guess."

"Would you try to stop her from going out with him?" she persisted.

"Why do you assume she said yes?" he demanded.

Karen rolled her eyes. "Never mind. The second question is, what would you do if someone hurt her? No--if you *heard* someone hurt her. Sorry."

"What would I do if I heard someone hurt her?" he repeated, trying to suppress the horrible memories of that afternoon. Aura leaping up only to be slashed and tossed aside like she was nothing...

"Yeah," Karen confirmed. She folded her arms across her chest, waiting on his reply.

"How hurt is 'hurt'?" he wanted to know. "Is she going to be okay?"

Karen cocked her head. "You don't *know*, Carlos. You just heard about it. She's not in school, but whoever hurt her is."

"I'd go see if she was all right," he said at last, thinking dark thoughts about her hypothetical attacker.

"Would you cut school?" Karen asked.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Is this part of the test?"

She grinned. "No; just wondering. Come on Carlos, if you're going to dump me I want to know she's worth it."

He winced, but she didn't look particularly upset. Actually, she didn't look at all upset. "I don't want to dump you," he muttered anyway.

"Then I'm going to dump you," she retorted indignantly. "I'm not going out with you while you're seeing someone from another planet. Hey," she added, almost as an afterthought. "Is she an alien?"

He felt a reluctant smile tug at his lips. "She's definitely an alien."

Karen looked pleased by that. "Cool! Can I meet her? If she ever talks to you again, that is?"

"Thanks for reminding me," he said wryly. "I'm sure Cassie would introduce you if she decides never to see me again."

"Great!" Seeing his expression, she amended hastily, "I mean, I'm sure she'll see you again. You can be pretty charming when you stop thinking about yourself for a while."

"Hey!" He glared at her without any real force, and she just grinned.

"Anyway, what's the last question..." She frowned slightly as she tried to remember. "Oh--this was supposed to be the first question, but oh well. If you called her to ask her to do something and she said she was busy, what would you do?"

He sighed. "Am I still taking this love test? I thought you said there were only three questions."

"There are," she said firmly. "This is the last one. You agreed to it, remember; it's not like I made you do it!"

"All right, all right," he grumbled. "What would I do." He tried to picture that. He could see it happening easily, but probably not the way the test meant it. Finally he gave up. "I'd ask if I could come over and help her with it."

"Huh," Karen answered noncommittally.

He crossed his arms in an unconscious imitation of her. "What does that mean? Did I pass?"

She studied him. "Are you sure you want to know?"

He sighed. "Of course I want to know. Why else would I have let you ask me twenty questions?"

"Three," she corrected. "And for whatever it's worth, your answers are all 'true love' answers. My friend's theory is that if you only *thought* you loved her, you would have gone after the guy who asked her out and the one that hurt her, and you would have tried to reschedule if she said she was busy."

"But I would have done that too," he protested. "How does that tell you anything?"

"But you wouldn't have done it *first*," she told him. "Each time, your first reaction was her. That's the difference."

He had no answer for that.

"So when are you going to talk to her?" Karen asked finally.

He tried to smile. "You just want to know when you can get your introduction."

She shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe I just want you to be happy."

He caught her eye, troubled. "Karen, I'm really sorry about all this..."

"Don't be," she insisted. "I hate to say it, but you're not exactly around much." She smiled to take the sting out of her words, and added, "I'm glad we got to know each other as more than friends; it was really fun--but I think we both knew it wasn't going anywhere. I hope we can still *be* friends..."

He couldn't resist her hopeful look, and he reached out to pull her into a hug. "You'll *always* be one of my best friends," he promised. "Thanks... for everything."

"You're welcome," she mumbled, hugging him back. "Let me know how it goes, okay?"

He smiled into her hair, feeling as though the proverbial weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "You bet."

As he let her go, she looked up at him questioningly. "Do you need a ride anywhere?"

He shook his head. "I'm just going to crash at home tonight, but thanks."

She rolled her eyes. "You don't have to walk. Get in the car."

He couldn't convince himself to protest, and her car pulled into his driveway a few minutes later. "Hey, Carlos," she called softly, as he climbed out of the passenger side.

He turned around and leaned down to catch her eye, hanging on the doorframe. "Yeah?"

She smiled. "Call me."

He chuckled. "I will. Thanks, Karen."

"Anytime."

He closed the door as quietly as he could and stepped away from the car. Sharp shadows sprang up on the pavement as she put the vehicle in reverse, and he waved as she backed out of the driveway and onto the street. Her car hummed off into the darkness, the brake lights flaring at the end of the street and then fading into nothing as she pulled away.

***

The night exploded around him, blackness suffocating his sight even as a cry that had to be his own reached his ears. He drew in sharp snatches of air, trying to stop shaking as the fact that he was safe slowly penetrated his brain. He looked up reflexively, though for the first time since coming out of hypersleep he found didn't need the sight of the stars to know that they were there. "The darkness is you, and all the stars are inside of you..."

He heard Andros stir beside him, and a moment later his friend pushed himself into a sitting position. "You okay?" the other asked, his voice thick with sleep as he tried to suppress a yawn.

"Yeah," Zhane answered quietly. "Didn't mean to wake you up."

"S'okay," Andros said, yawning again. "Bad dream?"

Zhane sighed. "Yeah, bad dream."

Andros shifted a little, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and pushing the sleeping bag off of him. "Want to talk about it?"

"I keep seeing that stupid school," Zhane muttered, glancing over at his friend. "You'd think we'd been through enough in the past few days," he added, a little humorously, "that my subconscious could pick something else to be terrified of. Just for variety, you know?"

Andros didn't smile. "How bad?" he asked softly.

Zhane breathed out, considering. His heart had stopped pounding, and he was already feeling calmer. "Not so bad. Honest," he added, when he found himself on the receiving end of a classic Andros look. "I think they're getting better... it was those first couple of weeks after hypersleep that were the worst."

Andros seemed to accept that, though he could sense his friend's frustration. "I wish there had been some other way," Andros said, almost to himself. "I'm sorry about the nightmares."

Zhane shook his head. "It isn't your fault; you know that." He reached over and squeezed his friend's shoulder reassuringly. "Besides, maybe they keep away worse stuff. At least I haven't dreamed about those cat creatures, or leaving people behind. Or that terrible stuff Astrea was eating for breakfast the other day."

Andros did crack a smile at that. "At least she did eat breakfast," he murmured. "And she had a lot for dinner tonight."

"She used her magic a lot today, too." Zhane frowned, shifting on top of his sleeping bag. "I really can't tell if it makes her stronger or weaker, sometimes."

"What do you mean?" Andros shifted too, rearranging his pillow and pushing his sleeping bag to one side.

Zhane shrugged. "She says she doesn't need to eat as much because of it, but when she uses it a lot, like today, she eats more. I don't get it."

Andros was silent for a moment. "I suppose we could ask her," he offered at last, sounding wry.

"Yeah, right." Zhane exhaled with amusement. "I've never been able to get her to talk about her magic. Nothing beyond the fact that she has it and she seems happy with it, anyway."

"Yeah," Andros agreed seriously. "And I guess that's the important part: she's happy with it."

He nodded, not bothering to answer. Andros knew he agreed.

They sat in silence for a few moments, until he thought to ask, "Have you seen that thing she does with memories?"

Andros looked up from where he had been playing with the edge of his sleeping bag. "Seeing what you saw, you mean? Where she gets inside your head and relives it with you?"

Zhane let out a soft chuckle. "She's done it to you too, then."

Andros' slight nod was just perceptible in the dimness. "Once. When she showed up at Rysia and asked where you were, I tried to tell her but all of a sudden she was... there." He shrugged, impatient with his inability to explain. "It was like I went through those seconds when you crashed all over again, only with her watching with me."

"That's it," Zhane confirmed. "That's what it feels like--as though you're there again, only with her. She did it to me a couple of times right after the crash," he added. "But I didn't feel it again until this afternoon."

The darkness moved as Andros shifted. "She did it this afternoon too?"

"No," Zhane said slowly, wishing he could see his friend more clearly. "You did."

There was a startled silence.

"You saw the school, didn't you," he continued, when Andros didn't reply. "During the nightmare, for a few seconds--you were there too. I could tell."

"Yeah," Andros answered finally. "I did see that. But it didn't... *feel* like what Kerone did."

"Maybe because you were the one doing it," Zhane offered. "It feels different when you're in her memories than it does when she's in yours. When she's in yours it's like you're both there. When you're in hers, it's like--you're her."

"Yeah," Andros agreed, sounding startled. "That's exactly what it was like. I was you."

Zhane grinned into the dimness. "Good thing that didn't last. If there's one thing DECA doesn't need, it's two of me."

"No argument here," Andros said absently. "Does that mean... her memory trick is something we all have? I thought it was part of her magic."

"But she's a full telepath," Zhane said, having already thought it out in his mind. "If that isn't because of the magic, there's no reason this should be."

Andros hesitated. "The only thing I've heard her say about being a telepath is that Ecliptor taught her."

"He couldn't have." Zhane frowned. "Could he?"

There was a whisper of air as Andros shook his head. "I don't think so. Maybe she's a natural telepath, and as it started to show up that was the only way she could explain it."

Zhane cast back, trying to remember a statistic he'd heard in Keyota several times. "The odds on that are... something like two in a million, aren't they?"

"I don't know," Andros admitted. "But *someone* has to be one of those two in a million. It would explain a few things."

Zhane smiled a little as something occurred to him. "If you're going to use that to explain her memory trick, that makes you the other half of the statistic."

"The other one of the two?" Andros asked, sounding amused. "I think I would have known before now. Maybe it *is* magic."

"Could she just be normal, like the rest of us--selectively telepathic?" Zhane suggested. "Maybe the magic just enhances it."

Andros didn't answer, but Zhane knew what he was thinking. "That still doesn't explain you, does it."

"Maybe it's contagious," Andros said, a grin in his voice.

Zhane laughed. "That's probably it. Hey, contagious telepathy would explain Ashley, too. You might be on to something there."

"I'm good with answers," Andros replied confidently. "They're just not always the right ones."

He grinned, the last vestiges of the dream-induced fear gone at last. Andros *was* the answer, the solution to so many things, but he couldn't quite bring himself to say it aloud. *You're a walking right answer,* he told his friend instead. *Thanks for being my best friend.*

He felt Andros' hand on his shoulder a moment later. *Thanks for being *my* best friend.*

Zhane hugged him impulsively. "Best friends forever," he whispered, and Andros hugged him in return.

"Best friends forever," Andros agreed.