trans_9 | This day stinks.

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This day stinks.

Normally, going to Billy and Ronnae's would be a great thing for her: it was one of those rare places where all of her troubles just melted away, where she could relax and be with friends. Of course, she thought that more when she was still holding Katara's memories. As Kaya, her perception of how things were started to change.

And today, it was by far one of the hardest days she ever dealt with. She had seen Billy's message and knew she wasn't the only one whose day had taken a turn for the worst. Her friends hadn't shunned her, and she'd met another airbender: those things, at least, were a feather in her cap. Everything else after, from finding out Azula was on the ship in the worst way possible to being in the med bay for two of her friends had worked its toll, and the others...it was obvious they felt they had been lied to, she couldn't blame them.

They wanted, needed Katara, but they had her instead, someone they didn't even know.

So she quietly walked over to Billy's, her head spinning and her mouth dry, hoping this would help.

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Billy saw her coming and worried. From that last message, he suspected that Kaya's situation had deteriorated very quickly for her. If anyone least deserved more conflict after what she had just been put through, it was her.

Without another word, he opened the door and ushered her inside. "Hey, Kaya. Do you just want to talk---or relax---or I can show you how to work the bath---"

Kaya ran straight into his arms, sobbing quietly. The bath actually sounded fantastic, but right now she just needed to be held. The memories were one thing, but Azula, and what she did in just a short amount of time had thrown her first day back into turmoil. Then the medbay after with the others...she just felt like an Outsider, and the rest of them were just sort of dealing with her.

When she moved from his chest, she wiped her eyes. "It's been a really stressful day. I don't even know where to begin..."

Billy was happy to provide that service too. He locked his arms around Kaya and held her to his chest, gently stroking between her shoulder blades. "Oh Kaya, I'm so sorry..." he whispered into her hair, holding her as long as she needed him to.

Then it was time to begin. "I know it's been awful. Come inside and settle on the couch, I've piled up the pillows and blankets. I have a feeling we'll need them." With that, he offered a hand to guide her inside.

She didn't need any more urging: when she and Billy broke she hurried in, closing the door after her and settling on the couch. Her eyes were already red rimmed from the crying she'd already done today, and she wiped them, settling down.

"I'm sorry to hear about Lord Zedd," she said miserably. "What happened?"

Billy took a seat close to her and snuggled in, a worried expression on his face.

"We yelled at each other, what else? He's disgusted by the prospect of sharing a ship with a Power Ranger. He'll do what he has to to get by, including helping us sometimes, but he's promised to cause as much trouble for me as possible within the bounds of the rules. He could be spying on us right now, actually."

He looked up, imagining that glowing red visor prying into all his personal details. This was...even more horrifying than he'd thought at first.

Kaya sniffed. "From how he was described, I don't think he'll be that hard to figure out. Not that I'm not going to take him seriously, of course. The moment I get that he's making trouble for you, I'll make sure his steps are so dogged he wished he kept his mouth shut."

She exhaled, her cheek a little flushed in anger. That anyone would dare make trouble for her Bonded was an instant retaliation. She would make sure that they knew who she was, that they learned the price of hurting someone who cared so much for her.

"But you're not the only one who had a close encounter of the enemy kind. I was making my way through pod pop when I come across Mai...and one of our greatest enemies, Azula, Zuko's sister."

Ronnae was in a pretty cheery mood. She had managed to set things straight with Beastboy and they are still really good friends. Which is much more than she expected considering she thought he wouldn't understand and hate her forever.

She hadn't seen the comm warnings, but she met Zedd and tried to get him to stop being so boisterous about what he wanted to do. She came up to the house and looked up at it, thinking about her own home, back in Silvermoon. Right about now one of her father's would be greeting her and scooping her up in their arms after a rough day on the field. One of her siblings would tease her about her non-existent love life, and maybe Nokosi would peek around the corner with Fontaine happy to see her arrive.

"Wonder what you'd think of me now papa~" She whispered to no one in particular.

Opening the door, she thought she heard the last bits of the conversation. So Kaya came over just as promised, that was great! they could spend more time together.

"Hi~!" She said in a cheery voice, hurrying over to the couch and bouncing on a free spot. "I'm home!"

"Hey Ronnie," Billy whispered, gently waving to her. She was definitely invited to snuggle in with them, as indicated by his open arm, but he tried to communicate that this was a serious conversation.

"What happened, Kaya?" he asked seriously. "I gathered you were extremely stressed by something she did."

Ronnae came in, momentarily distracting her, who she gave a wave and a small smile to. She turned to Billy.

"Azula was one of the most violent, sadistic people that the GAang ever had to face. At the end of the war she lost everything and it was Katara who finally defeated her. Seeing her now, still in that state of mental imbalance, was just dredging up bad memories I shared with Katara. Then Aang, and the others arrived after I had temporarily knocked Azula out, but she was faking. Mai wanted to kill her immediately, but Aang and I were stopping her. Zuko stepped in, turned his back to Azula...and then she burned him."

She hung her head in her hands. "After that, it was chaotic. I had to freeze Mai's hands to stop her from killing Azula again, and then I had to heal Zuko. They were able to sedate Azula soon after. All the while, the others are looking at me like a stranger, and in medbay, explaining it just made things more awkward. Sokka is blown away that his sister never was here, and Aang...well, I could guess what Aang was thinking."

After settling next to them and listening in Ronnae sure felt horrible about what happened. Here she was having a fairly pleasant day asides from the awkward moments in the obs deck. And her friend, who just came back was having an awesome day.

She looked down and placed a hand on Kaya's, "I'm... I'm sorry, I didn't know. And I was helping out at the observation deck... I... I didn't notice." She didn't know what to say, which is to say she had nothing to say to begin with. She messed up big time and now she wondered if she would have been able to help if she hadn't been sulking on her own petty troubles.

Ronnie wasn't alone in the guilt club there. Billy looked as horrible as he felt, trying his best to offer comfort to Kaya.

"And I was so distracted by Zedd that I didn't even hear you. I'm sorry, I should've been there too. But...then what happened?"

"Azula is contained now, but we have witnesses. Jeka was there, and a new pod popped, I think his name was Chase: he helped out too, and now we know enough to keep Azula in the brig. Zuko is recovering, so he's doing better. Mai...she's still out for blood. Aang and Sokka are pretty spellbound, not only by all of this, but the new airbender that popped."

She looked at her two friends. "After I looked after Negi and Zuko, I had to come back here. I needed to be with you guys or I was gonna explode."

Ronnae nodded as she listened to the story, not feeling any better. She could have helped, she could have stopped things from getting out of hand...

She sighed, "It's okay... you're here now Kaya. You can ask for anything you wish, I promise I'll do my best to help out. I already told you, you are an important part of my life, and I can assure you the same sentiment carries from others on the ship who love you dearly." She leaned over and gave her a comforting tight hug before settling back in her spot.

She turned to Billy curiously though, "Lord Zedd? The guy yelling about wanting to take over or see the captain? Do you know him? I was trying to get him to calm down before he got in trouble but he didn't seem like he wanted to listen."

Billy added himself to the hug for Kaya, trying his best to comfort her. "And we're here for you as long as you need us to be, don't worry."

He looked at Ronnie sadly---she hadn't received the message? She must have been busy with something. Well, time to explain all over again.

"Know him? Oh, I definitely know him," he growled, sinking back into the couch. "I don't think I ever told you in detail about my past as a Power Ranger. You know that I was in a group of heroes with five of my friends, right? Not the ones you see here, the ones from my Earth that have never awakened."

Billy closed his eyes, imagining their faces for a moment. It had been so long and he had lost all hope.

"Anyway, we wouldn't have to be heroes without a villain as our opponent, right? That's where Lord Zedd comes in. He was the master of the first sorceress we fought, and he's been a more troublesome opponent than her. He's an extremely powerful evil warlock who fights to conquer and destroy whatever he finds. Earth was his target, so the Power Rangers were left to stand in his way."

He went on, a sad expression on his face. "He won't destroy us, but he'll try to gain power through magical manipulation of our emotions. Knowing the intensity of his grudge against the Power Rangers, the team and all our friends will be his prime targets. He's already vowed to make my life as painful and miserable as he can."

Oh, she had definitely read all of this, and Billy had briefed her on it, so she was definitely not in the uninformed category. What DID happen, however, was the dawning anger at having had a friend injured before her because she had preferred to rely on sentiment, and then have a villain flat out tell Billy he was going to make his life painful.

"Over my dead body," Kaya said viciously. "If I see him, I'll tell him exactly what will happen if he so much as breathes yours name the wrong way! We have enough problems with the war, we don't need dissension because of petty vengeance in our worlds!"

She looked serious. "You show me what he looks like, Billy. I will set him straight."

The sudden rush of information felt like she had been run through with a rusty sword. How could she had even begin to think that things were looking up? They never do! All through her life any single glimmer of hope was crushed under another colossal void intent on making her remember why she hated the word hope. She felt sick, her stomach twisted and turned in ways it was not supposed to.

Her lover's worst enemy was on board, and she had tried helping him. Not only that, he threatened him, making him seethe with anger and concern, worrying him to no end. Her close friend had just recovered her memories, had to deal with the confusion and pain of explaining things and talking to the people from her world, and to top it off, another villain, this one from her world tried and succeeded in hurting her friends.

What did Ronnie do? Run around helping Matt and Rein, meet and assist the new crew members, even the evil ones, run things in engineering, and settle things with a very dear friend... who she kissed, lovingly and affectionately and now it felt like she didn't deserve ANY of it. She wished the ship would just drag her into its depths and end it all.

"I... I didn't know, b-but rest assured I--" Her stomach jumped inside her, making her frown. "I promise I'll do my best. For both of you, for my friends, for the crew. I won't let anything happen..." There it was again... her face lost some of it's color, but she smiled fondly anyways, "I think we all c-could use a pick m-me up. I still have enough cocoa for a few more servings I'll go make some after I f-freshen up." She got up wobbly and hurried upstairs to the bathroom where her insides were generously being spilled as her uneasiness got to her hard.

Billy could almost feel the tumultuous emotions running through Ronnie. Her pale face wasn't a good sign at all, and...there she was, running off again before he could explain things and try to help.

He looked down in his lap guiltily when she was gone. "I can go with you, Kaya. I know we need to preserve some semblance of unity on the ship, and that might help."

Why was he always doing it wrong? He was always hurting Ronnie like this.

She noticed Ronnae's face change as well, and inwardly sighed. It was hard, knowing that her problems were causing pain to her friend, but she would talk to her, make her realize she would be strong enough to deal with them as best as she could. She was no stranger to the harder tasks on this ship.

"We will go, later," she said. "Now, before I became a sobbing mess at your door, I distinctly heard you say something about a bath. Could I see it?"

"Of course," Billy answered, getting to his feet with a sigh. "But Ronnie might be using it. I don't know where she went."

And he felt too afraid to call out and ask her. Somehow, he knew she didn't want to hear him then.

"Then I'll go over to her," Kaya replied. "Maybe she needs some girl time for a little bit. And she can show me the bath."

Poor girl.

"Go ahead. I'll be waiting here."

Billy sank back against the couch again, feeling more glum than he had in a while.

Ronnae's stomach stopped lurching when there wasn't anything left in it. She made sure all the horrid stuff was gone by whispering the correct words weakly. She had no strength left however, the situation never looked up did it.

She crawled, to the best of her capabilities, making it to the bath. Not even bothering with her clothes she laid in it, muttering the words to fill it up and just closing her eyes. If she was lucky enough, maybe this was all just a dream... Maybe she could still wake up, and it'd be the morning of April first. And it'd all be good again.

She tried to clear her thought to no avail, sinking to the bottom of the bath and just replaying all that was said with all that she did.

Kaya did find the bath, and waited patiently until Ronnae was done heaving. When she heard the water running, she did come in, quietly closing the door behind her. She sent a message to Billy, I'll be back as soon as I can, thank you so much, and knelt by the side of the tub, gently stroking her friend's hair.

"Talk to me," she said softly. "What are you feeling?"

Edited 2011-04-03 18:13 (UTC)

Ronnae jumped a bit startled. She opened her eyes to look at Kaya besides the bath. She shouldn't be trying to comfort her, she thought. She wasn't worth it.

"It's n-nothing. I jus' got sick is all... Slop must have not agreed..." She kept her gaze down, looking pale still from all the heaving.

The hinges on the window squealed as Nokosi opened them wide, then hopped through from the tree branch he was perched on. For once he was actually going to take the initiative to grab the books and practice on his reading.

He straightened himself up and strolled into the living room to begin his search on...wherever he had thrown his book and supplies to the last time he got tired of the studying.

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This day stinks.

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