The Protector by EstiRose
Her hair is soft.
I haven’t really ever had the chance to play with her hair before, run my fingers though it, but she’s asleep and won’t mind. I hope I don’t wake her up, she needs all the peace she can get. I can’t imagine being a telepath. I don’t think she’s fully realized the reality beyond having to leave the team.
You don’t have to be a telepath to realize how angry she is sometimes about what she’s lost. She claims to have accepted everything, but I don’t think she has. Not as long as she’s got that anger inside her. And I can’t help. I’m too angry myself.
Her Tomorrow People friends treat her as a prodigal daughter, a sheep returned to the fold. She’s not like them, never will be. You would think that they would have learned that lesson with her father. A Ranger is always a Ranger. The Power may leave, but the memories never do.
Teresa says that some element of the Power must still be in her, or she wouldn’t be able to connect to the rest of us so well, and neither would her father. In fact, for a couple of days, she couldn’t stand to be near us- our emotions kept slipping past the shields she has to keep sane.
But that’s done now. She hangs out with us as much as she can. Maybe it’s the way that she keeps the balance that’s so precious to her, or maybe it’s just clinging to what she has left of her Rangerhood. I don’t know if it’s healthy, but I don’t want her to stop at the moment. I need her too.
Funny, how it took her losing her powers for us to realize that we’re in love. Actually, that she loved me as more than a friend. I wonder how many guys have been chasing her in vain, and I wonder why she never noticed. It’s not because she’s shy like Ian. Of course, I’m not sure I’ll ever figure it out. Teresa isn’t always very predictable.
I keep feeling the need to protect her. She looks so harmless, so defenseless. Yeah, she’s the star athlete, a person a lot of people look up to, but there’s so much she has going on inside that even I can’t imagine. Sometimes, it has seemed like she’s going to be split in half by her two different main obligations, and she’s never asked for help. I know there is counselling for this sort of thing, but what can she say? “I was a Power Ranger, and now I’m a telepath that’s unable to kill”? Sure, if she wants to get tossed into a straightjacket. And what TP psychologist would understand why she was in an occupation that made her kill on a regular basis?
And she wonders why I want to protect her.
She won’t accept it, but she needs it. She needs us, the rest of the team. She needs me. And I need her.
I love her.