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What I wouldn't give to be in church this Sunday
Listening to the choir so heartfelt, all singing
"God loves you, but not enough to save you"
So, baby girl, good luck taking care of yourself
But in the end, if I bend under the weight that they gave me
Then this heart would break and fall as twice as far
We all know how it goes
The more it hurts, the less it shows
But I still feel like they all know
And that's why I could never go back home
-Ethel Cain, Sun-Bleached Flies
It’s the end of the world.
It never stops being the end of the world when you’re a Ranger, though, right?
Or, in this case, a Series Operator.
God, Series Operators. As bright a rainbow as any Ranger team that came before them-
Well, except, save for a Pink Ranger.
Dr. K’s records of previous ranger teams imply that the pink on a Ranger team is usually the heart of the team. In the worst of times, these become the hardiest of Rangers. The ones who can withstand any blows. The ones that keep beating and bruising and bleeding no matter what.
It is said that the closest that the entire world- and every world after it- came to breaking was the one and only time that a Pink Ranger was the leader of the team, when the future became the past became the present became the end of all things.
Well, here they are, at the actual end of the world, so many former rangers dead beyond the city walls, no one to rely upon save themselves, no team to ask questions of, no veterans to ask advice from, no other rangers to be relied upon to join up with the team if need be.
And this team has no pink. It never has, and it never will. The colors are set, and cannot change. Red, yellow, blue, green, black, gold, and silver are the set numbers that can be filled, and that is it.
But it cannot be argued that the team does not have a heart.
It changes, based on the day, based on the circumstances, who the heart of the team might be. Whether it might be Summer, who traded all of her riches and her leisure and her luxury for a job getting her nails dirty, risking her life over and over again for a world that always underestimated her as nothing more than a dumb blonde. Whether it might be Flynn, who dedicated his entire life to fighting for the little guy, for running himself recklessly into the fray as a EMT and a nurse and a firefighter, flitting from job to job in some attempt to help the most people. Whether it be Scott, who is a soldier who does his duty, but his duty because he loves his father and he loved his brother and loves this city, cares about making sure that no one else has to suffer the loss that he has had to.
Or, more lately, if it might be Dillon, who might have some Venjix parts inside of him, sure, but who manages the battle against the end of the world everyday within his own veins, between his own bones, for the sake of protecting so many others.
Some might have expected it to be the Green Ranger, whoever might fill those shoes, whoever might take on that mantle.
But no one expected it to be Ziggy fucking Grover.
---
After they get back from the battle with that magnetic beast, they sit in the common area in the garage, some of them on the sofa, some of them on pulled up chairs or stools, all of them looking at Ziggy- save Dillon, who seems rather bored with the proceedings, not needing answers from Ziggy like the rest of them do.
But for the first time since any of them met him, they see Ziggy Grover and his deeds plain, and they need to know why.
“So,” Scott says, “You let us believe that you stole that truck for your own greed- why?”
“Why else?” Ziggy sighs, slouching back into the couch behind him, looking absolutely done with everything.
It is the first time that any of them- save Dillon, out in the wastes- see Ziggy at anything other than overly eager or bad-jokester. He drags his hand down his face, rubbing at his eyes and nose and mouth, revealing shadows under his eyes that could compete with the best of them.
He looks exhausted. Worn thin, like the rags of a suit he showed up wearing when he finally made it back inside the dome- rags he only wore because he stole a truck full of supplies and left the city rather than let the cartels get at a bunch of kids and nuns.
“If any of them had found out, then they would have gone after the orphanage. And I wasn’t exactly about to let them go after Sister Clara.”
“Sister Clara?” Summer asks, genuine, sympathetic curiosity in her voice.
Ziggy’s hand drops down to rest- or, perhaps, to purposefully cross over his chest. “Did no one here ever wonder why I had nothing to go back to? Why my name never went up on the missing persons list? I grew up in that fucking orphanage, raised in the front of that altar, making prayers to a god that clearly never cared, considering the way that he blew up the entire fucking world.”
“That was a robot, mate. The existence of the city is proof that something up there exists, that someone cares about humanity-” Flynn begins, but Ziggy’s head jerks in his direction, gaze narrowing.
“He let it happen,” Ziggy bites out. “Don’t tell me I don’t know about the god I spent my childhood praying to. Everything that we have, we have because humans built it for themselves, because they cared about saving each other after the world ended.”
But then Ziggy swallows, takes a deep breath, and returns to the subject at hand: “Anyway, you didn’t even ask what I did to get that hit out on my name.”
“You never told us-” Summer offers up, always level-headed.
“You never wanted me as a ranger, and you made that very clear,” Ziggy says, arms crossed over his chest in a position that would almost look bored, any other day of the week, but currently looks almost…protective of that delicate organ he calls his heart. “Why would I ever tell you about the fact that I had a hit out on my head that had all of the major cartels wanting me dead?”
“You were a hero, why wouldn’t you want us to know that?”
The truth will out, it seems, and it always will. “I didn’t want one of you to blabber about the orphanage. I was never right for that place, but god- I prayed for so long that it would survive the end of the fucking world.” Ziggy swallows, glancing down. “And if I told you that I was wanted by all of the cartels, that if I stepped foot outside of the Series Operators' circles, I'd be dead in an instant, for all I knew, you’d let them take me out so that someone else could become the Ranger.
“That never would have happened,” Dylan says, voice a dangerous grumble.
The tiniest of curves turns upward the corner of Ziggy’s mouth as he glances up at Dillon, but it melts just as quickly as it came. “Yeah, well, you're an outlier. Everyone else who has ever known me has been more than happy to point out how useless and replaceable I am-"
“No one can replace you, Ziggy,” Scott says, “You’re a Series Operator, now. You’re one of us. We thought that you knew-”
“You don’t exactly do a great job of showing it,” Ziggy argues, and it itches at Scott’s ears, an indictment he cannot escape, when Ziggy says, “You left me in that prison with people you knew wanted me dead.”
Scott is the leader of the team. The sort of leader that his father wanted. He has had to be strong, has had to be harsh, has had to be the hand of god in a city beyond the angels for so long. “You teleported into a bank vault, we couldn’t exactly get you out without the full background check and everything-”
Ziggy’s voice is flat. Sharp. Digging in deeper than a gopher bot as he says, “They were going to kill me, Scott. Fuck a “ghosting.” They were going to kill me.”
Ziggy Grover is not someone that breaks down. He is not someone that falls apart. He is not someone who is broken down by anything or anyone.
Sure, he is a coward. Yeah, he runs, if it means surviving. Everyone in the team knows that. Everyone in the fucking city knows that.
But he survives. He fucking survives, and now, they know that he survives so that others can live. He runs so that others can make it out.
Fresno Bob could not break him. The Wastes could not break him.
And having to speak to the team is not going to break him either.
“I was going to die,” Ziggy snaps, fingers digging into his biceps just below his green t-shirt, turning the skin yellow-white beneath the ferocious bite of his nails. “I was going to die, in that fucking room, if Dr. K hadn’t shown up. I have never been more sure of it. Even in the Wastes, there was a way out. There was a way to hide yourself from Venjix, if you could handle it. If you could gag yourself at night so that you did not cry out in your sleep. If you were willing to survive off of twinkies and insects and what water you can find, if you make it there on time. If you could bear to handle the sand and the dust and the wind and silence and the loneliness. You could make it. You could survive, and you might go a little bit insane, but you could make it. But in that room, with Fresno Bob, with all of those cartel members-”
Ziggy’s fingers are trembling. Ziggy’s hands are shaking. Ziggy is falling apart, because he held himself together for so long, too long, without anyone to hold him. Without anyone to tell him that he can finally stop praying and start living.
“I prayed to a god that wouldn’t answer. I made wishes on stars that I couldn’t see past the oil haze of Venjix’s army. All I wanted was to live. All I’ve ever fucking wanted was to live.
But eventually, I had to come back. Because we all do. Because this is the fate of the last city on earth. If you want to live, you come back to sanctuary. You’ve gotta follow the only North Star you can still see, that gleaming dome on the horizon, even if you know that you’re only gonna get chopped to pieces by its defenses.
And then when I got back here-”
Ziggy’s words fall like a condemnation. Like a sentence, in and of themselves.
“We all fight to die, every day. We all fight to save other people. We all put our lives on the line, if it means protecting others.
But that’s it- we still get to fight.
Do you know what it’s like, to look death in the fucking eye and know that you cannot fight it? That you are alone, because no one cared enough to check to see if you were really the monster they thought you were, and so you were snatched out from under someone else’s eyes? Because I- because I do, Scott.”
It is a city without gods save the ones that the humans make. It is a city built on the ghosts of those who failed to make it here and the ghosts of those that remain.
“I was going to- I was going to die-” Ziggy’s voice is stuttering, now, his breath hitching audible inside of his chest, his pupils blowing wide. “I’m a dead man walking. I- no prayer can save me- you’re gonna watch me die, because I’m gonna slip up, and Fresno Bob is gonna get me, and no one fucking cares enough to save me-”
There are no jokes anymore. No facade of humor and bravado to protect him.
Ziggy looked death in the eye, over and over again, and he might have survived, but that is enough to break even the strongest of men.
(And for what it’s worth- regardless of physical stature, Ziggy Grover will always be one of the strongest of men, just like anyone on their team.)
He did not have to come back into the city. He did not have to return to Corinth.
But he did. He did, knowing what was waiting for him.
And now he is here, breath surely battering against the inside of his chest, finally shattering beneath the weight of the world that has borne down on all of them for so long.
Ziggy's breathing is shallow. Stuttering. Staccato.
Dillon reaches out a hand, cupping his shoulder, and leans in, dark gaze piercing. "Match my breathing," he says, like an order.
“You breathe like- a fucking robot,” Ziggy says with a half-hysteric laugh, unable to get his breathing under control, and Scott gets it; he wouldn't be able to get his own breathing under control if he had hulking Dillon staring at him like that, commanding and intimidating without even realizing it.
Flynn leans forward, too, to try and help, and his help might be better, considering the fact that he has medical experience, and even Summer is reaching forward to touch Ziggy's knee, to try and give reassurance, but it's clearly overwhelming, because Ziggy is curling in on himself, crumpling in on himself, his shoulders hunching in, his chest collapsing beneath the force of a sob, one hand going to his mouth to shove a fist between his teeth, to gag himself, as if-
As if he’s back in the Wastes. As if, at his very core, beneath the jokes and the running and the Series Operator suit, this is the only way he knows how to survive.
And in this moment, Scott can’t hold himself back any longer.
He does what a leader does. He does what a soldier cannot.
He has grace.
More than that, he has kindness for someone who is breaking apart, finally shattering in the way that all of the rest of them has had at least one opportunity to do so since the world ended and they were handed the crushing weight of everyone else’s survival to wear like Atlas’ sky on their shoulders.
Scott slides forward, off of the sofa, and thankfully, the team parts like the Red Sea- even a disgruntled and clearly reluctant Dillon pulling back, though he does leave at least part of a hand on Ziggy's shoulder- in order to let him pull Ziggy into him, Ziggy’s head going to his shoulder, the echo of sand-encrusted curls buried into Scott’s shoulder.
Ziggy sobs, this wretched, broken thing, the sound of the Wastes echoing through the Garage. His fingers dig into Scott’s back, nails drawing blood if it weren’t for the thin fabric of Scott’s red t-shirt. Hell, they might even draw blood, from how hard he’s pressing, how tightly he’s clinging, but Scott’s shirt is red already. You wouldn’t even notice the evidence of ache if you weren’t looking.
(That’s the way it always is, when it comes to the grief and ache of heroes, isn’t it? You don’t get to have visible pain. You don’t get to be anything but quips and one-liners and enough strength to bear an entire city of ghosts on your shoulders.)
But Scott doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t grimace or wince.
Scott lets him bury his grief, his ruin, into Scott’s shoulder, and the only sign of his own vulnerability is the tear that slips from his own eyes, a grief of his own.
Scott’s shoulder carries the weight of Ziggy’s collapsing heart. His spine and shoulder stay steady, no matter the weight they have to bear.
But he can grieve, too, because that’s what happens when you care about someone. When you’re teammates with someone.
They all know a thing or two about making prayers that will go forever unanswered.
They all lost things in the end of the world. They all lost pieces of themselves and those that they love.
Scott lets Ziggy cry himself out until his breathing does eventually calm down, getting slower and steady and more exhausted, sure, but still calmer.
Eventually, Ziggy's fingers detach from Scott's back and he lets go, leaning back.
It is now that Dillon, forever the biggest hater of vulnerability or intimacy, brushes the only tear that didn't soak into Scott's shirt from Ziggy's face. The gesture is gentle, tender, in the sort of way that aches, because there is so little intimacy at the end of things, at the end of the goddamned world.
And yet, it is Dillon of all people that asks: “Why did you come back to the city?”
The smile that flickers onto Ziggy's lips is not an easy one. Not a happy one. But it is still an honest one, a raw one, and it speaks to the fact that even after everything, Ziggy can still summon some sort of humor or brightness at the end of all things. “Why did anyone come here? To live. To cling to life.”
And it's the truth for all of them. For those of them that came in via the Wastes at the beginning of it all, by bus and by crashed plane and by motorcycle, and for those of them that came in later, by a Waste-pocked car named Fury after what it takes to keep yourself going, through all those nights filled with uncertainty and ache.
You come to the last city on earth because you want to live, with all your bleeding nails and all your breathless grief.
And you stay, because you want to keep other people alive, no matter how much it might hurt to keep going.
"Well, know this, Ziggy," Scott says, "We're here to do everything we can to make sure that you live, okay? Not just survive, but actually live. You're a member of this team. You're our friend. And this is your home, too. I need you to know that."
Ziggy's smile warms, and it might just be by a little bit, but it does still warm, and that's something. God, that's more than something.
Because maybe, just maybe, Scott can prove to Ziggy that he means something to them, as more than what his doubts tell him.
---
Dr. K's cameras flip on in the morning to a strange beast alive in the common area: the sofas and stools have all been pushed back, making room for a giant pile of sheets and blankets and pillows and a slumped pile of sleeping Rangers in a rainbow of colors, green t-shirts and red boxers and blue nightshirts and yellow tank tops and black flannel pajama pants, arms entangled, legs overlapping, the power humming through a pile of worn-out bodies and blindingly bright souls.
There isn't a shade of pink to be found. No heart of the team to be had.
But maybe, at the end of the day, the heart can be found in all of them, each of them a vein and an artery and a ventricle, spilling out their own blood in order to protect the last of humanity at the end of history.