Forget Anything I Ever Said About You Being Smart

An empty smoothie and an unknown amount of time later, the sound around her got louder and clearer. Maggy opens her eyes (when had she shut them?) and looks to see Flynn holding her headphones.  “Ya done?”, Mags asks, standing fully. 

“Aye, gonna go get cleaned up”, Flynn confirms, holding up his grease-covered hands for reference. Maggy nods, taking her headphones back, and motions for Flynn to lead the way up the stairs, heading straight for his room. 

When they reach his door, Flynn pushes it open and heads to his closet while Maggy goes to lie on his bed. She’s putting her headphones on the bedside table when Flynn comes out of the closet with a clean set of clothes in hand. 

“I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be right here.” 

Flynn smiles, walking over to press a kiss into her hair, saying, “I know.”

Maggy smiles, settling into the pillows and closing her eyes. 

——

Flynns is sitting up in the bed with his back resting on the headboard, Maggy’s head is resting in his lap, and his fingers are running through her hair.

“K wants to look more into your hearing tomorrow,” Flynn murmurs, tucking her hair behind her ear. 

“K wants to use a sonic gun and see if it makes me scream,” Maggy grumbles. Her eyes aren’t open, but Flynn can perfectly picture her eye roll. 

“The more she learns, the closer we get to a solution,” He reminds her gently, trying to remind her of the positives. 

“Hmph,” Maggy grumbles, turning to shove her face into his thigh. “That’s later though. Right now, let's just listen to your fan hum.” 

“My fan isn’t loud enough for that,” Flynn denies, gently bringing her face out of hiding. His thumb strokes just under her eye, coaxing her to open them. 

“It is for me.” 

——

When Maggy walks into the lab, Dr. K  greets her with, “We need to test the range of your hearing.” 

“Didn’t you do that when you first ran me like a lab rat?” Maggy reminds her snidely. The young doctor was fascinated with Magnolia's “upgrades” when she first arrived with Dillon, running as many tests as possible. Most of which caused Maggy's sensitive ears great pain. 

“Though I deny that sentiment, yes, I have already tested the range of your audio processing, but now I need to see how it’s progressed with time,” Dr. K replies matter-of-factly, Maggy's attitude doing nothing to deter her from her studies. 

Maggy squints scrutinizingly at her, keeping silent for a long moment before she finally sighs and says, “If I do this, will you leave me alone?” 

“For now,” Dr. K appeases. 

“Fine.”

Magnolia moves to stand in the center of the lab, as is practice when you’re the source of K’s poking and prodding. Dr. K begins to type on her keyboard, faster than the average person can even think, let alone comprehend. 

“We’ll start with seeing how you handle low frequencies, and then we’ll move on to see if you can withstand high frequencies.” 

“Yay,” Maggy mumbles, clearly wanting this to be over as fast as possible.

“Let me know when you can make out the noise.” K gives no time before hitting play, waiting ten seconds, and then increasing it just barely. 

Magnolia notes that she can hear the first set of noise faintly if she strains her hearing, the second set a little more clearly, and by the fifth time K raises the volume, the noise is the same tone as someone speaking five feet from her. K writes her and Maggy’s observations on her clipboard. 

“Now we’ll move on to your capability to endure loud volumes,” K informs her, typing away on her computer one more time before standing and moving to grab more equipment from the table at the side of the room. When she turns back to Maggy, she’s holding what looks like a modified version of her sonic gun. 

Magnolia eyes it warily, regretting her choice to not run for the hills when she had the chance, “Wait, how do we know this won’t hurt?” 

“We don’t, that’s the point of the experiment,” K says from her place by the table. 

“Oh, comforting.”

“I’ll count from three.” 

Magnolia nods her understanding, taking a deep breath. 

“One”

She squares her shoulders, sets her feet. 

“Two”

She glares at the device before closing her eyes, putting her full focus into preparing to fight the noise. 

“Three”

Immediately, Magnolia's senses are surrounded by white. All she can feel is white, hot, bright pain. Faintly, she thinks her mouth is tasting the heat as well, but that could be the feeling of her skin burning. 

When she finally comes back to herself, she’s on the floor, her hands over her ears, eyes wide, mouth open, and throat sore from screams that were still escaping her. She feels swaying, like her body is being moved by ocean waves. She’s distantly aware that it’s her, rocking herself back and forth. 

The other rangers finally manage to open the lab doors, looking between K, who stands in shock, and Magnolia, who lies crumpled on the ground, still screaming. Dillon is the first to move, rushing over and falling next to Maggy on the floor.