Disclaimer: Will write for reviews. :shakes tin cup:

Author's Note: If this chapter seems a little raw or clunky, it's 'cause I didn't edit it as much. It was driving me nuts anyhow :) Happy Holidays everybody!

I'm going to dedicate this chapter to BloomingViolets, who not only leaves me awesome reviews, but leaves them in the middle of finals! She was reading my fics in-between studying probably as surely as I was reading hers during my own finals week.

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Sunday morning, Sydney had a much easier time deciding what she wanted to wear for her date that day, by virtue of having one discarded outfit from the day before, and also from much deliberation the previous evening after she and Sky had parted ways. The ice blue spring jacket was a favorite of hers, its color being more appropriate than ever on this particular outing, but the white Capri pants would require just the right footwear—very possibly open-toed, and thus toe polish was a good precaution.

At 9 a.m. she awoke, a spring already in her step and a cheerful hum under her breath as she gathered her grooming items and headed towards a long pampering session in the bathroom.

Meanwhile, Sydney's roommate, who once awakened did not easily fall back asleep, mumbled something about getting laid that the Pink Ranger did not hear and reached out blindly from beneath the covers for her headphones on the stand beside the bed. Hopefully some music could lull her back into peaceful dreaming. Her hand fumbled around a bit before she found the device and yanked it beneath her comforter. With the touch of a button, sweet music flowed through the wires and she rolled back onto her side, curling into a comfortable position with a content sigh. Dimly she heard Sydney reentering the room, probably for some minute but direly important item in her beauty regime. That tended to happen when one's regime included an insane variety of tools and products.

Forty-five minutes later, Sydney returned, flushed and glowing beneath her bathrobe from a refreshingly hot shower. She was still humming some un intelligible tune, but stopped abruptly when she noticed the enormous pink box sitting on the floor on her side of the room. The wrapping paper was holographic with a design of little swirls and stripes all over, and a thick silver ribbon laced up all four sides, culminating in a large silver bow on top. Thinner, curling ribbons in silver and gold splayed out from beneath the bow, tiny metallic stars attached to the ends.

A bright smile of delight lit her face as she dropped her shower items on the bed and quickly knelt down beside the box. The wrapping detail was exquisite, and on a childish whim she tugged on a few of the small curly ribbons so she could watch them spring back into place. Everything shimmered and shined when it moved.

She inspected the entire perimeter of the box and frowned a little when she could find no card or any indication of who the gift was from. She glanced at her roommate.

"Z?" The lump on the opposite bed did not move, and she hissed louder, "Z!"

A long-suffering sigh issued forth from beneath the yellow comforter before a hostile brown eye peeked out.

"Where'd this box come from?" Sydney demanded.

"How should I know?" was the groggy reply.

"This wasn't here when I left an hour ago."

"It wasn't?" the Yellow Ranger uncovered her head and pulled off her headphones. "You left the lock off again, didn't you?"

Sydney ignored her cross tone. "You didn't see or hear whoever came in?"

Z shot the Pink Ranger a scowl. "If you'd have the courtesy to set the lock on our door when I'm still sleeping, I wouldn't have to worry about strange people waltzing up in here from ax murderers to Grumm to—"

"Okay, okay, sorry," Sydney huffed. Her roommate was so not a morning person! "There's no card or name on here."

Z sat up in bed but kept the blankets firmly wrapped around her. "Why don't you open it?"

"Was going to." Sydney examined the box once more before tugging at the bow on top. "This must be the stereo Daddy said he was getting me." The knot came undone smoothly and the wide ribbon loosened, easily slipping off and taking all the little metallic curlicues with it. "I didn't think it'd get here so soon."

"What's so special about this new stereo?"

"Voice-activated playlists," replied Sydney with a grin. "And I can put it to any song on any of the ten CDs it holds just by saying the title."

The Yellow Ranger nodded approvingly. "Awesome."

Sydney meticulously pulled open the wrapping paper along its taped edges on one side of the box before she realized she wouldn't be able to do that for the entire box. After that, she just ripped the rest of the beautiful paper off.

A sturdy white box was revealed within, the lid of which was firmly taped down. She had to find scissors to slit through the thick adhesive before she could pull off the top and toss it aside. Then she rose up onto her knees and peered inside.

"Oh my god."

Intensely curious now, Z leaned forward on the bed. "What is it?"

Sydney hurried to unhook the four sides of the box and let them fall flat to the ground. Z raised an eyebrow.

"Interesting."

The two of them were staring at a perfect miniature, but not quite that small, replica of the Delta Base, right down to the thousand-plus windows in front and the scowling dog head on the very top. Only here, the dog's mouth was open a little wider and contained a keyhole—with a key stuck in it. Sydney pulled it out and examined it; it was a beautiful, old-fashioned brass skeleton key with a heart-shaped handle. She carefully stuck the key back into the keyhole and turned it until a click was heard. Then she had to sit back as the front of the model split down the center and slowly swing open to become a three-paneled display.

Both Sydney and Z's eyes widened when they saw the interior of the model. There were three floors of uneven height, the middle floor being the smallest. It was a simple, barren hallway made in the exact likeness of the Academy's many grey-blue corridors, complete with metal rafters spaced along the ceiling at proper intervals. In the center panel, the bottom level room was a replica of the Command Center while the top level was one of their own bedroom. A thick pink stripe adorned the wall on the right side while a yellow stripe adorned the left wall. Miniature furnishings filled the space: a bed, desk and chair, and a nightstand on each side, just like those that would be found in an occupied cadet room, except with the appropriate pink and yellow accents. There were other little things, personal touches like tiny CDs, pink furry pillows, and postage stamps to mimic posters on the walls. The decorations weren't quite accurate, but that was expected since no one (hopefully!) knew the exact details of their bedroom except them.

In the left panel, the bottom floor was the rec room and housed the most astonishing number of miniature props of all, and the top floor was the boys' bedroom. Along with the standard cadet room furniture with appropriately colored inflections, a tiny toaster, green dinosaur, and blue laptop computer could be found around the room.

Both top and bottom levels in the right panel were the zord hangar, in which sat five exquisitely detailed models of their Delta Runners. Sydney carefully took out Delta Runner 5, holding it up to the light from the window and loving how cute the little zord looked in the palm of her hand.

By now, Z had crawled out of bed and was sitting on the floor, examining Sydney's gift as well. She took out the mini-replica of Delta Runner 4.

"Who made all these?" she mused aloud as she replaced the Delta Runner and stretched out on her stomach to poke around the Command Center in the center lower floor. "Hey, there are light switches in here."

She reached out to touch one of the tiny buttons on the wall, but the last thing she expected was for it to work. To her surprise, the button depressed, and the Command Center was suddenly aglow with a soft blue light, just like the real life version was.

"Good friggin' lord."

Sydney's eyes widened. "Wow."

The two spent the next several minutes searching for every possible switch inside the replica. When they were done, the interior was lit like a Christmas tree. The middle hallway provided most of the light, the wall lined end to end with glowing panels like the real Academy corridors were. Z was disappointed to find that none of the props in the rec room worked, like the arcade games or the teeny television set. The food regenerator in the back corner did light up, though.

"Z, Z, look!" Sydney tugged excitedly on the Yellow Ranger's sleeve and pointed to their bedroom in the center upper floor. Z glanced around it once, then twice.

"What am I looking at?"

"Look at the stripes on the wall," instructed Sydney, who then proceeded to shut off the lights in the miniature room and turn them back on.

The stripes had seemed a pretty placid pink and yellow before, but now when she looked closer, Z could see the colors turned holographic with the light, containing a repeating pattern that actually moved. The yellow stripe looked like a field of golden grass swaying in the wind, and the pink stripe was a tessellation of flowers fluttering endlessly down.

Z reached out hesitantly to touch the paint, but the illusion didn't stop. "How does it do that?"

"It's a new kind of holographic paint," explained Sydney, looking clearly delighted by this new find. "Very popular." She giggled suddenly. "Look in the boys' room."

Z turned her gaze to see clouds drifting lazily by on the Blue Ranger's wall. "What? Clouds for Sky? I'm sure he's tired of the puns by now."

Sydney giggled and shook her head. "No. Actually, I was thinking that the clouds kind of look like rabbits."

"Huh?" Z scrutinized the blue stripe again. "I don't see it."

Sydney just giggled again, and Z turned her attention to the Green Ranger's wall. She watched in fascination as a procession of single green leaves fluttered and looped all across the length of the stripe, just as real leaves would do if caught in a breeze.

"That's pretty," she heard Sydney murmur, who was peering over her shoulder. She nodded.

"But who built all this?" she asked. "And—no offence—by why a model of the Academy?"

"I don't—" Sydney started to shrug, and then her eyes lit up in realization. "I'll give you one guess."

It took Z a moment to catch on. "But…why?"

"I don't know." Sydney started searching the floor again, lifting up the flaps of the box and peering underneath. "I'm hoping there's a note." She finally located a card-sized envelope that had somehow made it beneath her desk chair. On the back, her name was scrawled in a large, looping hand. She recognized it instantly.

"It's from Sky," she confirmed, ripping open the flap eagerly.

"Figures." Z was holding Delta Runner 3 in her hand now. "SPD taints everything that guy does."

Sydney just smiled as she pulled out the card. It had a simple cover, all blue except for the words Happy Birthday embossed in an elaborate silver script. It was very utilitarian, without the generous amounts of frill found on most greeting cards. In other words, it was very Sky. She flipped open the card.

Dear Syd,

I hope you still like dollhouses.

Love, Sky

There was a hastily scrawled 'Happy Belated Birthday' at the bottom, which looked very much like the sudden afterthought that it must have been. But it was the first ten words that melted her heart.

Z looked up when her roommate started laughing, blue eyes never leaving the open card she held in her hand. It was the Yellow Ranger's opinion that Sydney even looked the tiniest bit misty-eyed for all her laughter.

"What'd he write?" Z ventured, extremely curious now.

"I have to see him," said Sydney suddenly. She tossed the card to Z and shot to her feet. She was already shuffling out the door before Z could remind her that she was still only wearing her pink bathrobe, which wasn't in any way indecent, but it was far less decorated than the way Sydney usually groomed herself.

Meanwhile, Sydney didn't realize how strange her appearance was until she was already halfway to the boys' room, and while she did fret in the back of her mind how bad she must have looked, she couldn't stop her feet from moving. They carried her forward, until she nearly collided with Bridge just as he was exiting his and Sky's room. The Green Ranger just grinned and put a finger to his lips, pointing inside the room with his other hand. Curiously, Sydney peered in and promptly broke out in a smile as well.

The Blue Ranger was sprawled on his stomach on his bed, one arm dangling down over the side and his feet hanging off the end with his shoes still on. He was sound asleep.

"Do you like your present?" asked Bridge in a whisper, and she turned a wide-eyed stare on him.

"You knew about it?"

"I found out this morning," he gestured at Sky again, "when he walked in at six a.m. carrying a humungous pink box. With silver ribbon, and gold ribbon, and little gold stars and—"

Sydney cleared her throat.

"—and he made me be on the lookout for whenever you left your room so he could sneak it in."

"Why couldn't he just give it to me directly?"

"In case you didn't like it." Bridge looked at her skeptically and asked again, "Do you like it?"

"I love it!"

In fact, she wondered why she had never thought to milk Bridge for information on Sky before this. The two had been roommates for years, and if anyone could predict Sky's temperament in a particular situation, it would be Bridge.

It was entirely too tempting, with the Blue Ranger lying there prone like that, to go in and give him the most disruptive wakeup call possible. Six a.m. Bridge had said, which meant Sky had been working on her present all night long, and apparently had collapsed into bed that morning too tired to even remove his jacket and shoes. This was the ice king who resented nearly all forms of romantic intimacy save for a few select exceptions.

The man was downright bizarre.

But so sweet, she thought with a smile.

She made her way over to his bedside and, holding back her hair in one hand, bent over and blew cold air in his upturned ear. Immediately he jerked awake, forcing her to rear back before their heads collided. His eyes were only open in little slits, and he looked sleepy, disorientated, and extremely irked. She hugged him, pressing her cheek to the spot between his shoulder blades. He just groaned and dropped his head back on his pillow.

"I love dollhouses," she murmured, remembering the day she'd uttered those words in the Command Center in an offhand comment. She'd been sure no one had paid attention to them.

Sky mumbled something that sounded like 'good', but otherwise he didn't show much interest in her presence. Neither of them moved for several seconds, and then she asked, "We're still going on our date today, right?"

"Later?" was the garbled reply.

She sat up. "Bad form, Tate. You never keep the girl waiting."

He cracked one eye open, and then he actually rolled over and sat up. Now flustered, she tried to stop him and tell him she was kidding. He rubbed his eyes tiredly with the heel of one hand. When his gaze finally came to settle on her, unreadable as usual, she flushed.

"Why are you in your bathrobe?" was all he said.

"I just came back from the shower," she responded. "Go back to sleep. Bridge told me you were up all night."

"Yeah. Do you like your present?"

"Yes! People always buy me stuff, but no one's ever made me anything, nothing like that. It's amazing," she leaned forward and kissed his cheek, "and incredibly sweet."

He grinned proudly, but it was interrupted by a wide yawn.

"You need your beauty sleep." Her tone was teasing, but the comment completely passed him by.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." She put a hand on his shoulder and pretended to push him back down on the bed. "Anything that helps to put you in a better mood. Take off your shoes first."

He rolled his eyes and lay back, pulling his blanket haphazardly over his torso. When he continued to lie there awake, she frowned and asked, "What's wrong?"

He was looking at her pointedly. "I can't sleep with people watching me."

"Huh—oh!" For whatever reason, she'd fully expected to watch him until he fell asleep. He gave her a weird look as she stood up and shuffled out of his room, her pink bathrobe adding just one more element of awkwardness to the situation.

Z was absent when she returned to her room, the birthday card left on top of the Academy-dollhouse. She snagged it on her way in and sat down with it on her bed, rereading the message inside a dozen more times. Her favorite part was 'Love, Sky'. A standard signature, written in an endearing careless scrawl. Sky seemed like a 'Sincerely' type of guy; something far more neutral than the big L-word. Or maybe it was just that way to her. He probably saw absolutely no difference in signing with 'Love' or 'Sincerely' preceding his name. The more she thought about it, the blander the words became in her head. But then she'd glance at the card and at his handwriting, and she'd break out in a dreamy smile anew.

"Love, Sky," she read the words so quietly, she did little more than mouth them to herself.

She didn't love him (yet); there was no way she could have. She was still reveling in the giddiness of a two-year crush come to fruition. In the back of her mind, she was still taking everything with a grain of salt, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to encourage this relationship to its fullest potential. Sky had already proven himself to be more three-dimensional than he made himself appear, so who knew what could evolve in the future?

She went over to her closet where at the bottom she kept a highly decorated box filled with treasured keepsakes and other secret items. She intended to just slip the birthday card inside, but what stared out at her when she lifted the lid startled her.

A small journal documenting some of her earliest days in the Academy. It had beautiful leather binding, onto which she'd carelessly inked Syd + Sky inside a telltale heart. It was juvenile, silly, girlish, and prophetic.

What could evolve, indeed.

End

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Author's Comment: It's an end for us, but just the beginning for Syd and Sky, isn't it?

A huge, huge thank you to my faithful reviewers! There are some times when I publish just to hear your comments. They truly make my day, and the more detailed, the better! I am so addicted to getting reviews, but I bet some of my fellow authors can say the same :)

Author's Challenge: There's no prize for this, so this is just for fun. One of the best things about writing this fic was inserting several little references to details in the canon series. They can be obvious, like in Romance for Dummies where Jack reminds Syd of how she said she could milk a birthday for an entire week. For a hint, that chapter has the most references. I'm curious how many people picked up on such references, or how many you can find. Let me know in your reviews or in a personal message—either works. In reviews, you can share the fun with others! Happy hunting :)