You see things; and you say, &#39;Why?&#39;

"That's why I also made hot dogs," Xander put in as he carried a rather large plate of them into the room. "That's two food groups right there. Add a few twinkies and we're set."

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Z stared at him for a moment, then said, "Not that I'm picky about food, because God knows I'm not, but I suddenly feel the need for, like, a salad."

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Xander raised the hand not carrying a plate, to show a jar and a squeeze bottle. "Hey, there's ketchup and relish. In no way did I skimp on the veggies."

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Z was pretty sure Xander was going to die of scurvy at some point. "I worry about you."

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"If it eases your mind, I had a steak, tomato and cheese omelet with orange juice for breakfast. This is just my recommended daily allowance of edible crap to make up for it."

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"Well," she decided. "As long as there were tomatoes."

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"No, but it is pretty easy to balance toast," Bridge pointed out, placing one such slice on end on his plate to demonstrate. "See?"

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Z rolled her eyes at him and said fondly, "Dork."

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"I was going for 'fiendishly clever wordplay', but dork'll do," Bridge replied.

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Z shrugged. "Dork, fiendishly clever, same difference."

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"Except in the spelling, number of syllables, number of words..."

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"Yeah, yeah, except for all those things. Just go with it!"

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"Going, going," Bridge held up his hands in mock-surrender.

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"Good," Z said. "Because I'm totally always right."

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"Well...." Bridge drawled. "Except for that one time," that they'd agreed to never speak of again, "with the..." he trailed off, wiggling his fingers in a gesture that was completely different from the "buttery" fingerwiggle.

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"I thought we weren't talking about that," Z said, looking very emo indeed at him.

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Data tablet in hand, Jen wandered into the common room and took a careful seat on an ottoman near the door.

"So I take it those new tweaks we made to the Megazord worked pretty well?"

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"Like a charm," Bridge reported. "The transformation was way less reminiscent of one of those crazy carnival rides, this time."

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"And I," said Jen, tapping at her screen, "think I'll consider that a point in favor of the new alloy in the circuitry, and by the way . . ."

She switched over to a new screen, scanned the information, and looked up at him with a nod. "Thanks for not making us have to replace all of that again."

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"We... do our best?" Bridge tried. Which, okay, it wasn't like they tried to get the zords busted up or anything, but most of the time it was kind of unavoidable.

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"I never worried about it when I was piloting one either," Jen told him. "This is still an interesting new perspective for me. Then again, it was hard to think about who had to do the repairs when we sent ours a thousand years into the future . . ."

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Z pointed at Bridge and said, "What he said."

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"Good," Jen said absently, still going over readings on her screen. "Because as much sense as you'd think it would make, I don't think they'll ever make those cockpits less inconvenient to get flung around in."

You'd think there would at least be more handles to grab onto or something, but noooooo.

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"Tell me about it," Z grumbled. "You're not the one with bruises all over her twice a week." Although she guessed Jen, like, used to be.

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"It wasn't that long ago that I don't remember what it felt like," Jen replied, and if she'd been the type to call someone a whippersnapper she would've. But please, she hadn't unwound that much yet. "Don't look at me; I don't have a say in that part. At least you have seats."

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"And I appreciate my chair," Z told her. "Really, I do. Please don't redesign it out."

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Jen held both hands up. "Trust me, if it ever comes up in meetings I'll talk them out of it. Even when you are getting thrown around in there it looks a lot less ridiculous than hanging onto a giant joystick in an otherwise empty cockpit."

She'd seen the footage, okay?

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"Are we watching the one with the lava monsters?" Xander asked as he fashioned the world's most awkward hot dog bun out of a slice of buttery (fingerwiggle) toast. "'Cause we need folder hats if we are. It's a thing."

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It was a good thing there were plenty of Roombas in THE FUTURE. Just sayin'.

"I think it's on disc 2," Bridge reported. "Which gives us time to prepare folder-hats."

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Xander nodded approvingly. "Sadly I still haven't managed to figure out how to say folder-hat in Tev'Meck. Lava monsters, no-- ahh, crap." He'd lost the hot dog completely, dropping it from the 'bun' to his lap.

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"Note to self: lava monsters, apparently anti-toast. Or possibly hot dogs. Hard to say."

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Xander looked sadly at the ketchup stain on his jeans (it clashed with the paint stains) before grabbing the hot dog and trying again, this time getting a firmer grip on it with the toast. "Gotta be the hot dogs. Who could be dumb enough to be anti-toast?"

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"I'd bet cash money that Gruumm is," Bridge said thoughtfully.

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"You think?" Xander had waaaay too much experience pondering the whys and hows of evil dudes, stupid and otherwise. "Like, I can see him being anti-fuzzy-kittens, because he's a) evil, and b) kind of a nutcase, but anti-toast? Could you really enslave that many planets and still be that dumb?"

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"Well, he can't be that smart," Bridge pointed out. "I mean, we weren't exactly meant to be the first line of defence and yet we're managing to hold him off."

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