The End
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I am so nervous. She hoped it wasn't showing. During the party to celebrate Mike's return, she hadn't made any special moves towards him, though every inch of her had been screaming to do so. She wanted him, she needed him, her every breath cried out to be with him. But instead she had hung back, watching as Leo and Mike dealt with their reunion. I am never going to be able to say anything to him.
The Yellow Ranger had fallen hopelessly in love with Mike the moment she had met his eyes back on the training moon. Something in the way he carried himself, in his powerful demeanor and commanding strength pulled her the way a moth was pulled to the flame. But he's been gone so long...and been through so much...what if he doesn't want a girlfriend? What if he has one already here on Terra Venture? She had avoided asking that question of Kendrix, though she had asked every other one she could about their leader's missing brother over the last few months.
Kendrix had easily figured out why her new friend wanted to know, too. She herself was no stranger to unrequited love, nor to love at first sight. Once she had seen Leo, any chance she had ever had to fall for someone else had flown straight out the window. The female Rangers had often laughed, or cried, themselves to sleep at night, wondering if they would ever get the chance to tell those they cared for how they felt. Maya had always considered Kendrix the lucky one, since the object of her affections was right there to be spoken to. Kendrix had told her she was the lucky one, since there was no way Mike could ever tell her no, since he wasn't there.
But now he was there, and Maya was on pins and needles, wanting to tell him how she felt and yet too nervous to even go near him. It had been so much easier while he was gone; she had spent time with Leo in order to get to know his brother better, and had picked up a few hints that the Red Ranger liked Kendrix the way that she liked him. She intended to let Kendrix know that as soon as she could, too. There was absolutely no reason that at least one romance couldn't get started around there.
"Maya?" she jerked at the sound of her name being uttered by a male voice, and looked up. Mike's voice, filtered by the doorway, had been the one speaking it. "Maya, are you in there?"
"Uh. ..yes," She sat up, brushing her hair back away from her face and quickly looking in the nearest mirror. "Just a second." Quickly she rushed to the door and took a calming breath to steady herself. Her fingertips brushed by the doorplate, and the door slid back to reveal Mike standing there, looking nervous over something. "Hi, Mike. Is there...something I can help you with?"
The new Magna Defender smiled quickly. "I hope so. Maya, I was kind of wondering something."
"Oh?"
"Yeah." He nodded. "Are you busy tonight?"
Maya blinked, trying to focus. That was always one of 'the lines' Kendrix had told her to look out for when a guy might try to ask her out. "No, I'm not. Why do you ask?"
"I was sort of hoping you'd like to go see a movie with me tonight," Mike asked softly, gazing at her with strange warm eyes. Her entire body seemed to be blushing as she answered.
Mike lit up like a small sun. "Cool! Thanks!" He sounded much younger than even Leo at that moment, and she smiled. "I'll pick you up at seven, okay?"
"All right." Maya nodded. "I'll see you then." As Mike headed away, Kendrix rounded the corner and saw him with a smile as wide as Terra Venture itself. When she looked over to their door and saw Maya there, a dreamy grin on her own face. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Mike had finally gotten around to asking Maya out, and that she had said yes.
Kendrix touched her friend's arm gently. "Maya?" she asked. "Are you all right?"
The Yellow Ranger smiled. "I'm wonderful. And so is he."
Maya brushed her hair out until it flooded down her back in a dark wave and braided part of it. She had several new outfits made up from the clothing manufacturers of Terra Venture, and threw every last one of them on the floor of her quarters, unable to decide between them. She gave them a vicious, almost deadly, glare.
"None of them are good enough, Kendrix! Nothing is good enough!" Petulantly she kicked them, not caring if she got dirt marks on them or not.
Her pink friend only smiled quietly. "Maya, you look stunning enough already in what you've got on. If Mike doesn't faint at the sight of you, he's blind!"
The Yellow Ranger jerked her head around to glare first at her teammate, then at the mirror that reflected the same image she had seen plenty of times that evening: boring, dull, and utterly worthless. She wore a yellow dress/tunic that came to her knees, a slightly fancier version of her usual boots, and the traditional decorations of her people. "I'm hideous."
"Hideous or not," Kendrix rose at a sudden knocking on the door. "Mike's here."
Maya very nearly fainted on the spot, her cheeks first paling, then reddening. "He can't be! I'm not ready! It's not time!" Her eyes flicked at once to the timepiece, which showed the new Magna Defender to be right on time.
She stood like a trapped animal as Kendrix opened the door and smiled at her old friend. Mike stood there in a suit, something she'd never seen him in before, and with a bouquet of flowers in his hands. Whatever he'd been about to stay to Kendrix in greeting died on his lips when he saw Maya. His jaw dropped in sheer shock, his eyes quite obviously speaking one simple phrase: Why in the world would someone like that go out with a toad like me??
Kendrix cleared her throat after two minutes when she realized neither one of them was going to actually say anything without prompting. "I think you two had better get along to your movie, before it's too late." I hope I don't have to follow along to make sure they don't get lost in each other's eyes along the way!
"Um...yeah..." Maya blinked a little, then started over to Mike, who held the flowers out stiffly towards her. All of his calm and smoothness seemed to have vanished utterly, leaving a man....a boy...who would have been hard-pressed to say which way was up. Kendrix just shook her head. This was going to be very interesting.
"It looked like a place I could've come to like," he told her when she paused briefly. "I know we weren't there very long, but I did like it."
She smiled quietly. "I loved it. It was the only home I ever knew. Our ancestors supposedly traveled the stars in ships too, but they gave it up to live in peace on Mirinoi. The only remnant of those times is the Quasar Sabres." Her eyes darkened slightly at the memory of the day they had drawn the Sabres, lost Mike, lost her home, and gained her destiny all within the space of two hours.
"We'll find Mirinoi again, and we'll break that spell," Mike promised her, reaching down to squeeze her hand softly. "I promise you that, Maya."
For a heartbeat the two of them gazed at one another, eyes meeting and hearts meeting, and Maya knew that Mike was not lying to her. Somehow, in some unknown fashion, they would free her world.
The rest of the evening passed in a maze of bliss and beauty. The movie was everything that the rumors and previews had painted it to be, and the dinner that Mike talked her into afterwards tasted like the food of the gods themselves. Though to be honest, neither Mike nor Maya could have told anyone what it was that had happened in the movie or what they had eaten at dinner. All that either of them truly saw, that made a memory, was each other.
Somehow they made it back to just outside the girls' apartment without any mishaps, such as StingWinger attack or falling into the bottomless pits of each other's eyes. But as they stood outside the door, those eyes met, and neither of them wanted to leave, not even for a single moment.
No words were spoken. They were completely superfluous. Only their eyes spoke. Mike slowly stroked one hand across Maya's cheek, moved by things he could not express. He had loved her since the day he had seen her, and he couldn't explain why. The spark that had been born then had finally flared into life.
Maya touched his hand with her own, feeling the strength implicit in it. Their heads moved together, their lips sought one another with a strength that could not be denied. As they kissed for the first time, both of them knew that at long last, love had waited long enough. The wait was finally over.
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